Decline and After Cricket
Place's benefit year was in 1952 and raised £6,297; at the time this figure was only bettered by the benefits of Washbrook and Dick Pollard, and demonstrated his popularity with the Lancashire fans. The last time Place passed 1,000 runs in a season was in 1953. In 1954 he averaged a disappointing 21.64 with only one century, but the 1955 season was leaner still, amassing only 179 runs from 10 matches. At the age of 40, Place was released by Lancashire, and on being told his career with Lancashire was over he broke down in tears.
He became a first-class umpire, and although he enjoyed the job he disliked being separated from his family and quit after one season. Of Place's umpiring, Peter Tinniswood said "I am reminded here of that great and saintly Lancashire cricketer, Mr Winston Place, who on retiring from the first-class game took up umpiring. He resigned from his position, however, because such was his goodness and benevolence, he could not bear to give people out. God is rather like Winston Place". On retiring, he became a newsagent in his home town of Rawtenstall, even playing for the town's cricket team, living with his wife and two daughters. He died on 25 January 2002.
Read more about this topic: Winston Place
Famous quotes containing the words decline and, decline and/or cricket:
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“Considered physiologically, everything ugly weakens and saddens man. It reminds him of decay, danger, impotence; it actually reduces his strength. The effect of ugliness can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever anyone feels depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with ugliness, they rise with beauty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)