Former Worcestershire captain Phil Neale will be Worcestershire Cricket Society’s guest speaker on Tuesday 9 January in the Graeme Hick Pavilion, 7.30pm start.
Neale, the last player to play professional cricket and football on a regular basis, led Worcestershire to six trophies between 1987 and 1991.
During that period Worcestershire won two County Championship titles, two Sunday League titles, the Benson and Hedges Cup and Refuge Assurance Cup.
Neale made his Worcestershire debut at the end of the 1975 season, scoring 49 against Surrey at New Road, and went onto play for the County for 17 years, 10 of them as captain.
When he hung up his spikes in 1992, Neale had scored 17,445 first class runs at an average of 36.49 with 28 hundreds and 89 fifties.
He is 11th on Worcestershire’s list of all-time run-scorers, scoring 1,000 runs in a season eight times and being a key member in the middle order.
In addition, Neale scored 7,253 List A runs – the fifth highest by a Worcestershire player – at 30.22 with two centuries and 32 fifties.
Neale went onto lead England Under-19s to glory at the 1998 World Cup and coached Warwickshire and Northamptonshire before taking up the role in 2000 as operations manager for the England men’s team for two decades
He combined cricket with playing professional football, predominantly for Lincoln City and his appearance tally of 369 – between 1975 and 1985 – is the sixth highest in The Imps history.
