Player Database - Dave Woodburn

Debut game
v Long Eaton Reserves (h) 21st August 1965

Final game for Gresley Rovers first team
v Anstey Nomads (a) 5th September 1966

Head Groundsman at Burton Albion and Rolleston Cricket Club.

Dave had a distinguished career in Midlands club cricket, in particular at Burton CC in their halcyon days of the 70s, when the club won the old Central League four years in succession.

In 1975, he was one of the Midlands Club Cricket Conference cricketers of the year after scoring over 1,000 runs for Burton. His success with the bat may have had something to do with the fact that he prepared the pitches at Burton, which earned the reputation of being a bowlers' graveyard.

He is still driving bowlers to premature death on his pitches at Rolleston.

As a left-handed batsman, he may not have had the grace of a Sobers or Gower, but possessed the steely determination which he displayed on the football pitch. Provided he was not handicapped by the exertions of the
previous evening, he was a formidable opponent.

As a captain, he was as sharp as a tactician as he was blunt as a communicator, but he would argue that he was simply Burton's answer to Mike Brearley, by common consent the best psychologist in the sport.

He was also an accomplished slip-fielder, once taking an amazing seven catches at first slip in a league match against Lichfield, off the bowling of John Marriott and Bob James.

Dave is alive and well and living in Stretton. He can be seen tending his beloved pitch at Rolleston and be heard proffering advice to Nigel Clough at the Pirelli Stadium, where he also helps with the pitch. He would wish it
to be known that the well-documented problems with the Albion's pitch are certainly not of his making. He was "between assignments" when it was laid.

As a raconteur and wit he still holds court in the various watering holes in the vicinity of the grounds, offering well-chosen remedies for the ills of modern football and cricket.

I only saw him play football once - in a friendly years after he had retired from the winter game. He made the only goal of the match by flattening the 'keeper when he came out for a cross, but I am assured (by him) that this was foreign to his normal game and was not typical of the silky skills which he claims he displayed as a defender. Others may have a different opinion.

Certainly, with "Woody", whether it was at The Hawthorns or the Moat, at Edgbaston or Burton, what you saw was what you got.

(Additional notes courtesy of Bob James)

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