Monty Cranfield

Lionel Montague Cranfield (29 August 1909 – 18 November 1993) played first-class cricket for Gloucestershire between 1934 and 1951. He was born in Bristol and died at Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Family

Monty Cranfield was the son of Lionel Cranfield, who played first-class cricket for Gloucestershire and Somerset between 1903 and 1922, and the nephew of Beaumont Cranfield, who played for Somerset from 1897 to 1908 and who died just months before Monty was born.

Cricket career

Monty Cranfield was a right-arm leg break and off break bowler and a right-handed lower-order batsman who played fairly regularly for Gloucestershire both before and after the Second World War without ever really being certain of his place in the team. As a spin bowler, he coincided for much of his career with off-spinner Tom Goddard and then later with the slow left-arm spin bowler Sam Cook, both Test players and inevitable first-choice bowlers. As a result, he never achieved 50 wickets in a single English season, and nor did he ever bowl as many as 500 overs in a single season. As a batsman, though he often made useful runs, he had only one season, when he was 37 years old, when he was anywhere close to a front-line batsman.

Cranfield

Coordinates: 52°04′12″N 0°36′29″W / 52.0699°N 0.6081°W / 52.0699; -0.6081

Cranfield is a village and civil parish in north west Bedfordshire, England, between Bedford and Milton Keynes. It has a population of 4,909, and is in Central Bedfordshire District.

The hamlet of Bourne End is located just north of Cranfield, and is part of the civil parish. Wharley End was a separate settlement, but now forms the northern part of Cranfield village, by the university.

Amenities

Cranfield has two public houses, a football club, hairdressers, several take-away restaurants, two small supermarkets and one car dealership. There is also a surgery and dentist's practice along with a pharmacy. Cranfield has a university, two schools, two parks and a multi-use games area.

The village Post Office is now contained within the Co-op store; previously it was on separate premises near the centre of the village. Cranfield has one of only a small number of Morgan dealerships, in addition to a Ford dealer. There are further facilities at the university campus including a Post Office and bookshop.