Lancashire Spin Magazine Autumn 2023

G
len Chapple - Red
Rose legend and
leader. If you were
sat watching a day of
county cricket in the
Emirates Old Trafford
stands with your family
and friends and had the
age-old sporting debate
of, ‘Pick your best ever
Lancashire XI’, you can
beat your bottom dollar
that Chapple’s name
would feature heavily in it.
Names such as Wasim
Akram, Jimmy Anderson,
Neil Fairbrother, Andrew
Flintoff, Clive Lloyd, Brian
Statham and Ernest
Tyldesley would all surely
be discussed alongside
Chapple, who departed the
club in September following
31 years’ service as a player
and coach.
Chapple, now aged 49,
spent the majority of his
career with the county as a
talismanic all-rounder. He
was latterly captain, winning
the LV= Insurance County
Championship title, and then
a head coach who chased
the same honour alongside
silverware in white ball cricket.
As a player - between 1992
and 2015 - Chapple played
his part in 10 title wins in
Championship and oneday
cricket. Three of those
were successes in Division
Two campaigns across both
of those formats. He won
the Benson and Hedges
Cup in 1995 and 1996, the
NatWest Trophy in 1996
and 1998, the Axa League
in 1998, the CGU League in
1999 and the Championship
in 2011. Lancashire were
National League Division Two
champions in 2003 and the
Championship Division Two
champions in 2005 and 2013.
Titles are what mean the
most, but without personal
statistics nothing is possible.
Chapple played 650
competitive matches for the
county and amassed 1,332
wickets and 10,887 runs.
Broken down, he played
306 times in first-class
cricket, taking 948 wickets
and scoring 8,566 runs. In
his List A career, he played
278 matches for Lancashire
with 316 wickets and 2,020
runs. He also played 66 T20
matches and claimed 68
wickets and hit 301 runs.
In all first-class cricket,
Chapple finished with 985
wickets upon retirement in
2015. And, in truth, it was
an absolute travesty that he
went throughout his career
only playing a solitary oneday
international for England.
“I played young, I played
when I was 18, and managed
to play a first-class game in
24 consecutive seasons,” he
reflected, recently. “That’s
something I’m fairly proud
about. I was pleased that
I could stay fit, work hard,
keep improving and be
committed to what we were
trying to do.
“Personal milestones have
never been that big a deal.
To be honest, if you want
1,000 wickets and you’re
15 shy, of course you can
get them. It wasn’t the right
thing to do at the time (to
continue playing), so I didn’t
get there. But that doesn’t
really bother me.”
Chapple was speaking during
his last game as coach,
against Kent at Canterbury
in late September. It was a
bit of a ‘full circle’ moment
for Skipton-born product of
Earby Cricket Club.
He explained: “I think
Canterbury was my first
second-team game in 1990,
and I remember it because
I was 16 and we played
against Fanie de Villiers,
who was opening the
bowling for South Africa at
the time with Allan Donald.
That was memorable!
46 SPIN AUTUMN 2023