David Sheppard: Fair Cricket Campaigner

 
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by Arunabha Sengupta

1956.

670 runs at 41.87 in the 1956 summer. An authoritative century in the same Ashes Test which saw Laker pick up 19 wickets.

Moreover Denis Compton's kneecap had just been removed, and would eventually be placed in the Lord's museum. He has struggled most of the season.

David Sheppard looked a certainty for the 1956-57 tour to South Africa.

However ...

Returning to England in 1955 after the Sophiatown protests, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston published his seminal work in 1956—Naught for your Comfort. It dealt with his experiences in Johannesburg—the extremes of racial discrimination, the ghetto conditions where intimidation and fear rivalled totalitarianism at its worst. It was loaded with a full barrage of evidence—discriminatory legislation, antiquated justice, restrictions on speech, gathering and movement, housing issues beyond imagination, squatter camps, reserves that were virtually controlled concentration camps, the Bantu Education Act aimed towards downgrading all native Blacks, brutality, contempt, economic blocks.

Huddleston spoke in a meeting in the House of Lords in London, to ask the worlds of sports and arts to boycott South Africa. David Sheppard heard him speak. After the talk, the two men of cloth walked up and down the Terrace of the House of Lords by the river. Huddleston suggested that nothing would jolt people of South Africa more than if MCC refused to send a team there.

Perhaps it was this discussion that influenced Sheppard or perhaps it was his job as the curate of Islington. In any case, he made himself unavailable.

1960

The Duke of Norfolk approached Sheppard, asking him whether he would captain his team in the opening match of the tour. By then, Sheppard had been clear that he would not turn out against an all-white South African side. He refused.

If there had been doubts in his mind, Sharpeville removed them all.

However, he was plagued by the question whether he should make his refusal public.

Sheppard wrote to Joost de Blank, his former bishop. At the current moment, de Blank was the Archbishop of Cape Town. De Blank wrote back, “It would do a tremendous amount for our cause here.”

As a member of the MCC Committee, Sheppard informed MCC President Harry Altham about his decision. Altham asked him to reconsider.

Sheppard says he sat on the embankment, reading the Scripture, wondering what to do. Isaiah 58, verse 1, convinced him.

When Sheppard told Altham that his mind was made up, the MCC President arranged for him to disclose his intention of going public to the MCC Committee. There was an immediate explosion from Lt Col RT Stanyforth, who protested the ‘political and religious statement’. However, Altham stood by Sheppard. The former England captain made a brief statement of his decision to the BBC News.

However, all through the decade Sheppard would fall out over his views with some of his teammates — the principal antagonist being Peter May.

1968
The year of the D’Oliveira Affair.

On December 5, the special meeting of the MCC was proposed by the rebellious group formed in the aftermath of the D'Oliveira incident and the cancellation of the tour.

David Sheppard assumed leadership.

Three motions were proposed at the meeting.

First, was that the members of the MCC regret their committee’s handling of the matter leading up to the selection of the team for the 1968-69 South Africa tour.

Two, no further tours to and from South Africa were to be undertaken until evidence was obtained of actual progress by South Africa towards non-racial cricket.

Three, a special committee needed to be set up to examine such proposals as were submitted by the SACA towards non-racial cricket.

The 26-year-old Mike Brearley took the incredibly bold step of seconding these proposals.

The motions were all defeated when put to vote. These were apologists aplenty for the white Old Boys' Club that characterised England -White South Africa Test cricket

The results of the voting:

Proposal 1: For 1,570 Against 4,357

Proposal 2: For 1,214 Against 4,644

Proposal 3: For1,352 Against 4,508

Tells you a lot about MCC.

1970

Protests, peaceful and not-so-peaceful, dogged the South African rugby tour of 1969-70.

.Two days before the match against The North at Aberdeen, David Sheppard, now Bishop of Woolwich, spoke about his admiration and full support for the majority of peaceful demonstrators while questioning the violence perpetrated by some of the militant members among the protesters.

Sheppard formed his own organisation, Fair Cricket Campaign, in April that year. The goal was to stop the proposed South African tour of England that summer.

He voiced his protest in AGMs of the MCC, on television shows, during marches, demonstrations, interviews.

His organisation was soon joined by many...Sir Edward Boyle, the former Conservative spokesman on education, became a vice-chairman. Reginald Prentice, another Conservative MP, would become the second vice-chairman. The Labour Party was always expected to oppose the South African tour. To get the support of major Conservative luminaries was more than an achievement. Sheppard managed to make that happen.

Political pressure soon built on all sides.

The South African tour of 1970 was cancelled.

Apartheid sports faced isolation.

David Sheppard was one of the major forces to make that happen.

He was criticised by manyJohn Waite, Charles Fortune … other South Africans. Several English cricketers refused to speak to him, including one Peter May. But, Sheppard’s conviction did not waver.

His first innings as a Test cricketer was impressive - at least much more impressive than the other parsons who generally field at long stop. His second innings as an important cricketing voice against an evil regime was even more effective.
And of course, his work as a priest went much beyond cricket.

Rev David Sheppard was norn on March 6, 1929.