Family Background and Early Career
Ellison's mother's "records of family cricketing achievements show that his great-grandfather played against the Grace brothers in the nineteenth century and that his grandfather captained Derbyshire Second XI at the age of 60". Ellison's father, Peter, played cricket with him from the age of three and, aged just seven, Ellison took eight wickets for three runs for Friars Preparatory School, Ashford.
Ellison himself "gives the credit for his development into a swing bowler to Alan Dixon, his coach at Tonbridge School, who later recommended the young all-rounder to his own former county, Kent." However, Ellison was a prodigy, being selected for the Tonbridge first XI in the first year. At school, he was considered primarily a left-handed batsmen, and played alongside Christopher Cowdrey, who was to become his county captain in professional cricket.
Ellison did a teaching qualification at Exeter University, "because I didn't know what else to do – I never thought I'd use it ... I hadn't even planned to stay on in education past 16: I wanted to join the Royal Marines, but problems with my back prevented that."
Read more about this topic: Richard Ellison (cricketer)
Famous quotes containing the words family, background, early and/or career:
“Children need money. As they grow older they need more money. They need money for essentially the same reasons that adults need money. They need to buy stuff....They need it regardless of whether they get good grades, violate a family rule, or offend a parent.”
—Donald C. Medeiros (20th century)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A bird’s cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)