Maurice Burrows
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On May 13th 2016, Wasim Khan, Leicestershire’s Chief Executive, and Roy Bent, Chairman of the Friends of Grace Road, officially opened the Maurice Burrows Stand, which has been restored by the Club with the help of a significant contribution of £12,000 from the Friends of Grace Road.
Wasim thanked the Friends for this fantastic donation and for the continuing support and hard working endeavours of their volunteers. The contribution towards the restoration of the stand is marked by a plaque.
For the benefit of those too young to remember Maurice Burrows, Roy recalled that he was a lifelong follower of cricket and avid supporter of the County, whose games at Grace Road he watched with a group of other members, such as Sid Chamberlain, Richard Holdridge, John Peachey, Peter Norman, Maurice Letts, Chris Stones, John Whitmore and Carol Hooke from the seats on top of the pavilion, long since regarded as the best view in the ground.
Maurice, who became a Life Member of the Club in 1977, was a teacher of French at King’s Norton Grammar School in Birmingham where he enthralled pupils with stories of cricket on a regular basis. He also lived in Birmingham, but spent all of his summer school holidays staying with his Aunt in Belgrave, from where he used to ride to Grace Road on his old bike or travel on the Inner Circle bus because he never drove a car.
Maurice was affectionately known as Lord Burrows because he was very well spoken, educated at Loughborough Grammar School and Jesus College Cambridge and had a penchant for giving everyone else an aristocratic title, normally a French one. Amongst these was his friendly adversary, Dave Vesty, for whom, like everyone else, he had the greatest respect even though they were like chalk and cheese, but who he christened Le Vicomte de la Vesty.
During the 1986 season, Maurice proudly and excitedly announced to his friends that he would see them more often at Grace Road the following year because he was taking early retirement during the winter. In fact, as he left the ground on his last visit of the 1986 season, he sang to his friends, “We’ll gather lilacs in the spring again”. Having taken early retirement in March 1987 at the age of 50 as promised, Maurice sadly died suddenly just a month later in April 1987 and never again visited Grace Road. Never having married, Maurice bequeathed £120,528 from his estate to the Leicestershire County Cricket Club. Much of this money was spent on the development of the outdoor cricket nets that you see today. Maurice would have been proud of that as he would of the Club’s decision to name the balcony seating on top of the pavilion in his memory.
Maurice occasionally went to watch Leicestershire play away from Grace Road, of course most notably at Edgbaston, and my most abiding memory of him is when Maurice, Dave Vesty, Graham Clarke, Barbara Johnson, Doug and Sheila Ellis, their son, Neil, and I went to Swansea to see the County play Glamorgan in a 3-day game on 30th May 1976. We all went to a pub in the Mumbles, close to where we were staying, for dinner one evening and were joined by Barry Meyer and possibly the other umpire, Sam Cook. Maurice and Dave were in full flow on that evening, throwing insults and jokes towards each other all night about their parentage, their perceived upbringing and their political leanings. No-one else could get a word in edge-ways, but it was an hilarious evening.
It is such an honour for the Friends of Grace Road to now mark the re-opening of the Maurice Burrows Stand and to commemorate Maurice’s love of Leicestershire County Cricket Club.
Wasim thanked the Friends for this fantastic donation and for the continuing support and hard working endeavours of their volunteers. The contribution towards the restoration of the stand is marked by a plaque.
For the benefit of those too young to remember Maurice Burrows, Roy recalled that he was a lifelong follower of cricket and avid supporter of the County, whose games at Grace Road he watched with a group of other members, such as Sid Chamberlain, Richard Holdridge, John Peachey, Peter Norman, Maurice Letts, Chris Stones, John Whitmore and Carol Hooke from the seats on top of the pavilion, long since regarded as the best view in the ground.
Maurice, who became a Life Member of the Club in 1977, was a teacher of French at King’s Norton Grammar School in Birmingham where he enthralled pupils with stories of cricket on a regular basis. He also lived in Birmingham, but spent all of his summer school holidays staying with his Aunt in Belgrave, from where he used to ride to Grace Road on his old bike or travel on the Inner Circle bus because he never drove a car.
Maurice was affectionately known as Lord Burrows because he was very well spoken, educated at Loughborough Grammar School and Jesus College Cambridge and had a penchant for giving everyone else an aristocratic title, normally a French one. Amongst these was his friendly adversary, Dave Vesty, for whom, like everyone else, he had the greatest respect even though they were like chalk and cheese, but who he christened Le Vicomte de la Vesty.
During the 1986 season, Maurice proudly and excitedly announced to his friends that he would see them more often at Grace Road the following year because he was taking early retirement during the winter. In fact, as he left the ground on his last visit of the 1986 season, he sang to his friends, “We’ll gather lilacs in the spring again”. Having taken early retirement in March 1987 at the age of 50 as promised, Maurice sadly died suddenly just a month later in April 1987 and never again visited Grace Road. Never having married, Maurice bequeathed £120,528 from his estate to the Leicestershire County Cricket Club. Much of this money was spent on the development of the outdoor cricket nets that you see today. Maurice would have been proud of that as he would of the Club’s decision to name the balcony seating on top of the pavilion in his memory.
Maurice occasionally went to watch Leicestershire play away from Grace Road, of course most notably at Edgbaston, and my most abiding memory of him is when Maurice, Dave Vesty, Graham Clarke, Barbara Johnson, Doug and Sheila Ellis, their son, Neil, and I went to Swansea to see the County play Glamorgan in a 3-day game on 30th May 1976. We all went to a pub in the Mumbles, close to where we were staying, for dinner one evening and were joined by Barry Meyer and possibly the other umpire, Sam Cook. Maurice and Dave were in full flow on that evening, throwing insults and jokes towards each other all night about their parentage, their perceived upbringing and their political leanings. No-one else could get a word in edge-ways, but it was an hilarious evening.
It is such an honour for the Friends of Grace Road to now mark the re-opening of the Maurice Burrows Stand and to commemorate Maurice’s love of Leicestershire County Cricket Club.