When bowlers got ‘Stonings’

Saturday 30th July 2011, 2:29PM BST.

Bill Stone on his wedding day in 1951.

HOW we could have done with Bill Stone in our T20 cricket side last week.

Never heard of the man? Well, the name may well be recalled by the older generation. And when it came to ‘doing a Farley’, (my-days old tag for someone depositing sixes out of the ground, which Jersey’s Ed Farley proved very, very handy at doing at the Sarnians’ expense last Sunday morning), Bill Stone was probably Guernsey’s very best.

H. V. Stone was, quite possibly, the outstanding Guernsey cricketer of the 1930s.

Only Johnny [J. A.] Martel probably rivalled him for the unofficial accolade, scoring stacks of runs himself, but when it came to explosive batting, Bill Stone had no peers.

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1
Phil

August 1, 2011 at 11:14 am

Am I the only one who questions the accuracy of these reports on cricketers of yesteryear?

Tall tales of players hitting balls from Cambridge Park into what is now the Priaulx Library, being Guernsey’s best ever explosive batsmen etc, who is substantiating these lofty claims (I’m aware that you’re getting on a bit Scoop but surely you can’t remember THAT far back?).

I know I’m not alone in thinking that it would be better for the GP to feature more reports on today’s local cricket (the coverage of which has gome massively downhill in recent times) rather than waxing lyrical about times(i.e. the 1930s) that virtually nobody can remember.

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2
Paul Le Page

August 2, 2011 at 10:42 am

Phil – we all know that as time moves on the glasses get more rose-tinted….and claims of prowess often get exaggerated with time – that’s how legends start.
You know what I mean – “man knocks out mugger” turns into “yeah, there were 12 of them and I took ‘em all!”

In all seriousness though, with hitting like that I reckon he’d walk into the India test side at the moment!

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