Devon Cricket Board - Tributes flow in for Peter Roebuck

CONRAD SUTCLIFFE REPORTING

FRIENDS and rivals alike have paid glowing tributes to former Somerset and Devon cricket captain Peter Roebuck, who died in South Africa on Saturday.

Roebuck, who was 55, fell to his death from a window on the sixth floor of a Cape Town hotel.

Although no inquest has been opened, Roebuck’s death is being described as suicide by police in Cape Town.

Roebuck, who worked as a journalist and broadcaster, was in Cape Town covering a Test match between South Africa and Australia. One of the papers he worked for, the Sydney Morning Herald, reported on its website that moments before his fatal plunge Roebuck was being questioned by police over allegations of a sexual assault.

Cape Town police are refusing to confirm what they were speaking to Roebuck about at the time.

Roebuck played for Somerset from 1969 to 1991 – skippering the side in 1986, 87 and 1988. He joined Devon in 1992, taking over as captain the following year, and led his adopted county to unprecedented success in the Minor Counties Championship.

Four years running between 1994 and 1997 Devon were Minor Counties Champions.

The did the double in 1994 – winning the one-day MCC Trophy at Lord’s by beating Lincolnshire – and were back at Lord’s in 1998 to beat Shropshire in the same competition.

Nick Folland took over as captain in 2000, but he retired unexpectedly early the following season and Roebuck was invited to return. He led the side back to Lord’s, where they lost to Norfolk, and retired for good in 2002 after Devon lost to Warwickshire Board XI at Worcester in the one-day cup.

Folland, who had two years with Somerset and was captain of the England Amateur XI before he turned professional in 1993, played under Roebuck during Devon’s glory years. He said Roebuck may have been a complex character, but it was a privilege to have played with him.

“He was a remarkable man, a fine cricketer and an outstanding captain,” said Folland, who retired as Devon’s all-time leading run scorer.

“He could be moody, he was certainly eccentric, but he set high standards as a cricketer and drove the team hard. He had a way of getting the best out of players.

“As a cricketer he was aggressive. He wanted to get batsmen out and he wanted to win, but he always tried to play positive cricket.

“And if there was a battle to be fought on the pitch, he relished it.

“They were great days to be playing for Devon and we were lucky to have had him.”

Roebuck retired relatively young from First Class cricket having become disillusioned by the day in and day out grind of it all. From the early 1980s he had been a regular newspaper columnist on the game, firstly with the Plymouth-based Sunday Independent, and wrote two semi-autobiographical books about his playing experiences.

Devon played a pre-season friendly against Somerset 2^nd XI at Taunton early in 1992, at which team manager Jack Davey got chatting to Roebuck and sowed the seeds which led to him joining the county.

“Peter was a young player with Somerset when I was getting near the end of my own career with Gloucestershire and although I knew him I didn’t know him very well,” said Davey.

“He said he wasn’t playing for anyone and, knowing we were likely to lose Nick Folland shortly to Somerset I thought he would be ideal to come in as a senior player.

“It was probably the best thing I ever did for Devon. He said he would play a few games and see if he enjoyed it. The rest is history.”

Davey said Roebuck’s understanding of the game and the people who played it made him such an exceptional captain and, later, journalist.

“I would say he is the best captain England never had as there were times in the 1980s when he was arguably the best opening batsman in the country and tactically as astute as anyone around,” said Davey.

“What he did for Devon cricket, both as a player and captain, will never be bettered.”

Cornwall’s captain during Roebuck’s time with Devon was Godfrey Furse, who is now the team manager.

Relations between Devon and Cornwall were often frosty during the 70s and 80s, but that all changed under Roebuck and Furse.

“We had one bad game at St Austell when he was first captain and there wasn’t time to get a result, but after that we got on pretty well,” said Furse, who now owns a hotel in Newquay.

“It was always a battle of wits with ‘Roby’ and I used to enjoy pitting mine against his.

“Roby generally played positive cricket and that meant our games almost always produced a result.

“Devon were a good side then and often won. But we had our moments too, such as Falmouth in 1995 when they were the MCC Trophy holders and we knocked them out in the first round.”

Furse said something else he liked about Roebuck was he respected Minor Counties cricket and played it accordingly.

“Over the years many ex-pros have come into Minor Counties cricket purely for the money and treat it with disdain, almost as if it is beneath them,” said Furse.

“Peter respected the competition and always strove to play good cricket and improve the players around him.”

Roebuck was just like any other journeyman professional with Somerset until he became captain and then found himself embroiled in the Richards-Garner affair that almost tore the county apart.

Roebuck supported a committee decision to sack West Indian Test stars Viv Richards and Joel Garner at the end of the 1986 season.

After an acrimonious battle fought out in public, Richards, Garner and Botham all left Taunton. A public feud between Roebuck and Botham simmered away in the Press and in books for years afterwards.

Roebuck hit the headlines again in 2001 when he appeared in court charged with assaulting three young South African men who had been living with him at his house in Taunton.

Roebuck admitted beating the men on the backsides and was given three four-month prison sentences, suspended for two years.

Roebuck had taken out Australian citizenship some years earlier. Following his court appearance he left Britain for good and divided his year between houses in Sydney and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa.