By Charlie Puckett
17 February 2013
The sudden and unexpected death of David Edwards came as a terrible shock to everybody at the Club Cricket Conference.
David enjoyed a career as a civil servant but it is his cricketing life for which he will be remembered. At the time of his death he was Secretary of the Ryman Surrey Championship, one of the ECB’s Premier Leagues, a position he had held since 2004 having been Results Secretary since 2000. In addition, he founded the Surrey Cricket Board Association of Cricket Officials and remained its Chairman until he died.
David turned to umpiring at a relatively young age in 1968 and stood in the Surrey Championship as the ‘Spencer umpire’ (there was no panel in those days) until 1987 when the panel was formed. From 1978 until 1986 he was a member of the Minor Counties Championship Panel where he stood in over 50 matches. In addition to this, he was also a member of the County 2nd XI Panel for some 25 years standing mainly in Surrey matches, which of course meant he umpired regularly at The Oval. The high point of his club career was umpiring the National Club Final at Lord’s.
His career with the Club Cricket Conference was no less spectacular and he was selected to umpire on the 1985 Under 25 tour to Kenya and the 1987 tour to Australia. His wife Virginia, always an essential part of the Edwards Family Unit, accompanied him on both trips: on the former as scorer and the latter as Tour Secretary.
David Smith, Captain on both tours, remembers David with great affection and respect. “I already knew David from Minor County cricket and was aware that he was considered by all the captains to be both a fair and good umpire and I was always pleased when he was appointed to our matches. Both he and Virginia were excellent tourists and, bearing in mind the intense heat in Australia, he was painstaking in his preparations. He would smother himself with sunblock to the extent that, when taking guard and looking up, a very white ghost would appear through the heat haze! He never suffered from sunstroke or too much sun, though!
The Manager of the 1987 tour and President-Elect of the CCC, Stuart York, recalls that David’s decision making on that tour was pretty well flawless and he achieved the difficult feat (in Australia) of being popular with both the opposition and his fellow umpires.
Even when Virginia suffered a severe knee injury, he still soldiered on and Stuart’s conversations with the players, and particularly the Surrey ones, made it clear that David was much respected, both as an umpire and an administrator.
He umpired various CCC matches in the UK, including two CCC Inter League Cup Finals in 1981 and 1988 as well as the Cricketer Cup final in 1996 and the British Universities Final the following year when a young Andrew Strauss batted so low that he couldn’t even get to the wicket in Durham’s 8 wicket victory!
David’s death is a terrible loss to club cricket in general and to Surrey cricket in particular and we extend our deepest sympathies to Virginia.