Simmons is a fan of days out in Liverpool

Jul 30 2007 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

ARRANGING to talk to Jack Simmons about his beloved Lancashire at precisely the time when they are due to be playing Northants in a Pro40 match might seem a sin for which the Old Trafford chairman could allow little forgiveness.

But not a bit of it. Simmons is always ready to talk cricket, and in any case, it is raining at Wantage Road.

“Yes, it’s been very, very disappointing,” admits the former Lancashire off-spinner. “All our four-day games have been affected by rain or bad light but we have to put up with it. Normally we’re used to the rain in Manchester but what’s been a little bit amusing is that when other counties get this similar type of weather, they whinge.”

Along with Merseyside’s cricketing public. therefore, Simmons is particularly keen to enjoy a few days’ sunshine during the LV County Championship fixture against Sussex, which begins at Aigburth tomorrow.

For one thing, Lancashire are only 40 points behind the leaders, Yorkshire, and have two games in hand. A win this week could start a run leading to Mark Chilton’s side securing their first outright title since 1934, an event which, Simmons has said, would allow him to “die happy.” For another, Simmons enjoys outground cricket and wants to see it flourish.

“I think it’s a change,” he said. “I think you’re spreading the gospel of cricket and instead of the players going to their usual “office”, they’re going somewhere different and it seems to give them a bit of a fillip.”

Today Simmons will attend a lunch to mark the bicentenary of Liverpool Cricket Club and he knows he will receive a warm welcome.

“There are some very nice people at Aigburth who always look after you,” he said. “They look after the players, the committee and everyone who comes from Old Trafford. I’m highly delighted we still play there, but then I’m highly delighted we still play at Blackpool because I was professional there both before I went to Lancashire and after I left the county.”

The Lancashire chairman also has clear memories of his own appearances at Liverpool, although typically, his recollections focus on the team performance.

“The first county game I ever played there was against Northants,” he said. “It was a good, bouncy wicket and Peter Lever and Ken Shuttleworth bowled them out and we won. “

That nine-wicket victory in 1970 was followed by a succession of annual appearances at Aigburth and duels with some of the great West Indian fast bowlers.

“ I faced Andy Roberts and Malcolm Marshall there,” Simmons said, before adding with understated pride, “and I did well for the side, if not necessarily for Jack Simmons.”

But no trawl through Simmons’ memories of Aigburth would be complete without mention of his only hat-trick for Lancashire, which he achieved at the end of a spell of five for eight against Notts in 1977.

“When the last man [Bill Taylor] came in, he told me, ‘You’ll never have a better chance of getting a hat-trick than you’ve got today, Jack’ “ said Simmons, clearly in the middle of a much-loved party-piece. “Anyway he had a big slog and mid-wicket shouted ‘That’s yours Simmo!’ and I had to run to mid-wicket to catch it.”

Lancashire’s folk-hero is keen that present-day players should sample the “exceptionally good” Aigburth wicket and wants the country’s best young players to play for their county, too. He is a fan of the new England coach.

“You have to have that time in the middle,” he insisted.

“I’m absolutely over the moon that Peter Moores has a different policy to Duncan Fletcher in this respect.

“I don’t believe anyone gets better by sitting on their backside.”