Neville Marshall Dominates 5th Ashes Test

It is with some pride that Hampton Wick Royal Cricket Club is waking up to the sight of Neville Marshall, in his umpiring garb, festooned across the famous Oval gasometer for this Test. There’s no missing the man. He’s approximately 20 feet tall and unmistakably Neville.

Somehow it’s a fitting tribute to Neville, who sadly died earlier this year, that he gaze down on a Test for five days and that his image is there to imbue the very essence of fair play and great customer service. Because as the memorial service that was so well attended and the celebration showed afterwards, that summed him up to a T.

Neville Marshall was one of those once in a generation people that transform the cricket clubs they are part of. They aren’t necessarily the heart and soul of the place, nor the charismatic leader – but they make sure the thing ticks. That it’s there. That there’s beer in the pipes, a wicket cut, fixtures to play, new folk rolling up. Nev was the Wick Man of his generation.

When Wickman appropriated the name for his “anonymous” online musings about the club he wasn’t laying claim to be Nev’s heir. More the Wickman character was intended as an Everyman who somehow captured the spirit of what it was to be Wick. Which, in hindsight is probably what Neville was to the Wick from 1970 until the early 2000s when his declining health told him that it was time to hang up his umpire’s coat and put the distinctive hat on its peg.

Wickman met him a number of occasions in those times and could see a man perhaps shaped by the time that he grew up in – with strong principles and a straight down the line view of the world. One unfortunate club member who held a party at the club and chivalrously chaperoned a worse for wear female guest home – leaving a dutiful Neville to clean up in the morning - found himself regularly LBW in games where Neville umpired. Whether this was quiet and steely revenge or disapproval for the modern world or simply a reflection of the fact that that particular member played everything off middle stump down to fine leg will go to the grave with Neville.

Later Neville was a source of many histories and was able to trace back the delicate fabric of the club for attentive scholars of Wick history. He told his tales with no hint of malice but with an unmistakeable twinkle in his eye.

Neville was born in Hull in 1937 to Olga and Leonard Marshall, the second of five children – with Hazel, Rita, David and Jeffrey life was a little crowded in the Council prefab in Strencell Road. He was evacuated during the second World War in rural Warwickshire before attending Kingston High School in Hull, excelling in cricket and football. He did his national service in the movements branch of the RAF. His first job was as a Railway Clerk at Cottingham Station and the beginning of a lifelong addiction to cricket through the Railway Clerks cricket team.

He emigrated to Australia in the 1960s on the £10 assisted fare scheme and when he returned made his home in Twickenham and his second home with Hampton Wick Royal.

He worked for many years for the National Licensed Victuallers Association in Farnham. Phil Dixon, a work colleague, said ‘Neville was a passionate champion for fair treatment for the nation’s publicans. Throughout his tenure as the National Officer of the NLVA, pub landlords and their families enjoyed a better life as a result of his work and dedication.’

He was diagnosed with diabetes in his early 1950s and had a series of illnesses and operations but until a decade ago was still the lynchpin of the club. Neville’s grand passion was for cricket. But he had many other interests; rugby, jazz, country and western and stirring classical music. He followed Hull City football club.

When he could no longer drive and mobility became very limited his friends, and the Wick, came to him – to watch sport, eat curry, picnic and enjoy life.

He was described at his funeral by his closest friend as “the kindest and best friend I could ever have wished for – he spent his life helping other people but never bothering to care for himself. In the last few years he suffered greatly but always kept cheerful through it all and was still there for me right up until his very last day”.

It is Hampton Wick Royal Cricket Club’s 150^th anniversary this year. Neville expressed a wish that if people wanted to mark his passing in some way a donation to the Club’s funding programme for an extension to it’s pavilion wouldn’t go amiss. At the dinner his Wick blazer will be auctioned. It will be highly prized.