Gerry Tordoff - Cambridge, Somerset and The Navy

Cambridge, Somerset and The Navy

Having been at Manchester University, he went to Cambridge for the 1951-52 academic year and won a blue for association football, playing at left-half. In the 1952 cricket season, he played regularly for the Cambridge side, winning a blue alongside a galaxy of Test stars — Peter May, David Sheppard, John Warr and Cuan McCarthy had already appeared in Tests, Raman Subba Row, Gerry Alexander, Robin Marlar and Dennis Silk, who played only one match, later became prominent players. Tordoff scored 435 runs at an average of 29 in the university season, with a highest score of 81 in the match against Middlesex at Fenners.

Once the university term was over, Tordoff played for Somerset regularly for the remainder of the 1952 season and finished second in the county's batting averages, with 636 runs at an average of 33.47. He scored his maiden first-class century with 101 not out in the match against Hampshire at Taunton. He finished the season with 1071 runs at an average of 31.50. Having bowled only seven overs for Cambridge without taking a wicket, his bowling was more in demand for a Somerset side whose weakness in every variety of bowling except spin consigned them to the bottom of the County Championship. In several matches he opened the bowling and in Harold Gimblett's benefit match against Northamptonshire at Glastonbury he took four for 43 in 22 overs, the first four wickets of the innings, and these remained his best-ever bowling figures. But his total of 11 wickets for the county that season came at a cost of 48.27 runs each.

At the end of the 1952 cricket season, Tordoff took a three-year commission as an officer in the Royal Navy. This curtailed his appearances in first-class cricket over the next two seasons. In 1953 he played five times for Somerset and three times for the Combined Services, but failed to exceed 50 in any innings. The following season there were four Somerset games and two for Combined Services, and these matches produced 512 runs at an average of 51.20 with two centuries – a not-out innings of 156 for Combined Services against the Pakistan touring side at Catterick, which remained the highest of Tordoff's first-class career, and 110 for Somerset against Kent at Maidstone.