The ‘irreplaceable’ S&B stalwart Tom
SOUTHPORT and Birkdale Cricket Club was in mourning for the second time in less than a fortnight after the death was announced late last week of Tom Caunce at the age of 64.
Caunce was a slow left-arm spinner of great skill, a very resourceful lower middle-order batsman and a former first-team skipper at Trafalgar Road.
However, he began his career as a fast bowler and even took a hat-trick for the Lancashire Federation side against Middlesex in 1969.
Like Alan Morton, who died ealier this month, Caunce played in the sides which won the Liverpool Competition in 1975 and 1979. His ability to probe the defences of the league’s very best batsmen was a vital component in the success of those teams and his name was one of the first on the team sheet.
In knockout matches, Caunce often bowled his eight or nine overs at the beginning of an innings, conceding perhaps 15 runs and taking a couple of wickets. He imposed a grip on a game which other bowlers strove to maintain.
In the 1981 Liverpool Echo Knockout final Caunce captained S&B to victory over Oxton, taking 13 wickets in the two-innings match and nine in the Wirral side’s second innings. He also played in the sides that won the competition’s knockout trophy in 1980 and 1982.
“Tom was his best in knockout games,” said Peter Walker, a former first team skipper at South- port and Birkdale. “He even gave variety to a side that had seven all-rounders. He could play useful innings and he gave it a good thwack over extra cover, which is not where you expect batsmen coming in at eight or nine to get their runs.”
Late in his career Caunce skippered S&B’s second team and when his playing days were done, he served the club as a skilled groundsman, first by assisting Peter Bailey and then by deputising when Bailey himself was ill.
“Tom took on the ground chairman’s role in 2010 and he immediately established a great rapport with groundsman Peter Bailey,” said S&B’s chairman, Tony Elwood. “Always ‘hands on’, Tom found the job became a full time occupation the following year when Peter fell ill.
“Aided by Steve Phillips during this time, Tom reverted to his former role when Peter returned, only to take up the cudgels once more during the interregnum between Peter’s retirement in 2015 and Eric Lanchin’s appointment.
“The great thing about Tom was the certainty that if I needed to speak to him, I only had to turn up at the club around half past nine in the morning, any morning, for as a contract gardener he always began his working day with a cup of tea down at the club.
“Tom was a doer, if he saw something that needed doing he wasn’t one of those who say, ‘Chairman, can you sort this out?’. “He just got on and did it. “That sort of attention to detail and dedication will be well nigh impossible to replace.”
Tom Caunce was an utterly loyal and valued member of S&B, a club he served with quiet devotion for over 45 years.
He put in countless hours of work on the ground where he had played with such distinction.
He is quite irreplaceable and the club is so much the poorer for his passing.
This has been a bleak spring at Trafalgar Road.
Tom Caunce’s funeral will be held on Wednesday, April 5 at West Lancashire Crematorium, Pippin Street, Burscough L40 7SP at 10.45am, and afterwards back at the club.