Joe Blackledge (1928 – 19 March 2008) was a first class cricketer who played for Lancashire County Cricket Club . He played for just one season - 1962 - captaining the team as an amateur in the year before the players and gentlemen distinction was formally abolished.
A fine all-round sportsman at Repton, he joined the Army and played much cricket for it in Germany. On leaving the Army, he was a successful batsman for Chorley in the Northern League and captained Lancashire's second XI.
The team he led in 1962 was one of the weakest in the club's long history and finished second from bottom in the table, losing 16 matches and winning only two. Blackledge hit 33 and 68 in the first match against Glamorgan, but contributed little with the bat thereafter, finishing with 548 runs at 15.65 in the Championship. He returned to running a textile business at the end of the season.
He later served on the Lancashire committee for many years and was President of the club in 2001.
He was the uncle of the former England rugby union captain Bill Beaumont.
Famous quotes containing the word joe:
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)