Geoff Clayton

Geoffrey Clayton, born 3 February 1938 at Mossley, Lancashire, played first-class and List A cricket for Lancashire and Somerset between 1959 and 1967. He was a lower-order batsman and a wicketkeeper.

Clayton was a regular first-team player in every season in which he played first-class cricket and he was at or near to the top of the wicketkeepers' lists for most dismissals each year. But his abrasive personality did not endear him to county committees – or to his county captain at Somerset– and he left first-class cricket at the age of 29.

Lancashire cricketer

Clayton played for Lancashire's second eleven in 1956 and 1957, but made his first-class cricket debut in the 1957 for the Combined Services cricket team while on National Service. On discharge, he returned to Lancashire and was brought into the first team at the start of June 1959, remaining then as first-choice wicketkeeper until he left the county at the end of the 1964 season. In his first innings for the county side, he top-scored with 43. In his third County Championship match, against Middlesex at Liverpool, he scored an unbeaten 74. The batting was a bonus: Lancashire's previous first-choice wicketkeeper, Alan Wilson, had a career batting average of less than six runs per innings. But Clayton in his first full season averaged more than 24, and though he did not sustain this, and the 74* remained his highest score until 1963, he batted for most of his career at No 7 or No 8. Clayton's arrival was noted by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack's 1960 edition: "In the sturdily built Clayton, Lancashire discovered a wicketkeeper of real promise and lively character," it wrote.