Frederick Sewards Trueman, (6 February 1931 – 1 July 2006) was an English cricketer who played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the England cricket team. He had professional status and later became an author and broadcaster.
Acknowledged as one of the greatest bowlers in cricket's history, Trueman deployed a genuinely fast pace and was widely known as "Fiery Fred". He was the first bowler to take 300 wickets in a Test career. Together with Brian Statham, he opened the England bowling for many years and they formed one of the most famous bowling partnerships in Test cricket history. Trueman was an outstanding fielder, especially at leg slip, and a useful late order batsman who made three first-class centuries. He was awarded his Yorkshire county cap in 1951 and in 1952 was elected "Young Cricketer of the Year" by the Cricket Writers' Club. For his performances in the 1952 season, he was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in the 1953 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.
His talent, skill and public profile were such that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, himself from Yorkshire, jokingly described him as the "greatest living Yorkshireman". Even so, Trueman was omitted from numerous England teams because he was frequently in conflict with the cricket establishment, which he often criticised for its perceived "snobbishness" and hypocrisy. After he retired from playing, he became a media personality through his work in television and as an outspoken radio commentator for the BBC, mainly working on Test Match Special. He was awarded the OBE in the 1989 Birthday Honours for services to cricket. In 2009, Trueman was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
On the occasion of England's 1000th Test in August 2018, he was named in the country's greatest Test XI by the ECB.
Fred Trueman was born at no. 5, Scotch Spring Lane, Stainton near Maltby, West Riding of Yorkshire. He said himself that he weighed 14 lb 1 oz (6.4 kg) at birth and was delivered by his maternal grandmother Mrs Stimpson. Her maiden name was Sewards and Trueman's parents decided to honour her by naming him Frederick Sewards Trueman. Not long before his death in 2006, Trueman appeared to discover that Mrs Stimpson was Jewish. He said that he was happy to be considered Jewish but joked that he would be very reluctant to give up on bacon sandwiches. Chris Waters' 2011 biography states this claim to be untrue and that Elizabeth Stimpson's natural parents were a couple from Lincolnshire with no Jewish connections.
His parents were Alan and Ethel Trueman and he was the middle one of seven children. They were a country family, their home being part of a terrace row called Scotch Springs (now demolished) that was surrounded by countryside but about a mile from Maltby Main Colliery and half a mile from Stainton village. Trueman's grandfather had been a horse dealer and his father worked primarily with horses too, though for a time he was a coalface worker at Maltby Main. His parents instilled into all the children a strong sense of discipline and the values of honesty and forthrightness.
Trueman's education began at the village school in Stainton where his teachers recognised his talent for cricket. Encouraged by his father, he had started bowling when he was four. His father was captain of the Stainton club and Trueman used to accompany him to matches, once playing for the club when he was only eight years old. When Trueman was twelve years old, the family moved to a larger house on Tennyson Road in nearby Maltby, where Trueman attended Maltby Secondary School.
At Maltby Secondary School, Trueman had two teachers called Dickie Harrison and Tommy Stubbs who recognised his talent as a bowler and picked him for the school team, even though he was much younger than the other players. His school playing career was interrupted for two years after he was seriously injured by a cricket ball that hit him in the groin. He started playing again in 1945 when he was fourteen but left school that summer to start work, initially in a newsagent. He had several jobs before becoming a professional cricketer. Inhibited by his injury, Trueman might have given up on cricket at this time but instead, motivated by his family, he joined a nearby village club called Roche Abbey, playing regularly for them in 1946. He was successful at Roche Abbey and, before the 1947 season when he was sixteen, came to the notice of former Yorkshire player Cyril Turner who was coaching the Sheffield United Cricket Club which played at Bramall Lane, a ground then in regular use by Yorkshire for first-class cricket.
In his autobiography, Trueman acknowledged his debt to Cyril Turner, "a superb coach", who taught him how to "hold the ball properly", enable it to swing both ways and how to follow through properly to complete his bowling action. Trueman played some matches for Sheffield United's Second XI team in the 1947 season and was then promoted to the first team so that he could play in the Yorkshire Council League. The following winter, he received an invitation from Yorkshire to attend indoor coaching classes at Headingley, Leeds, under the supervision of Bill Bowes and Arthur Mitchell.
Before the 1948 season began, Trueman was selected by Yorkshire for the Yorkshire Federation team for players under eighteen, effectively the county's third team. The team toured the south of England and it was on this tour that Trueman met two of his future Yorkshire colleagues, Brian Close and Ray Illingworth. He enjoyed a successful season with Sheffield, saying that "the year 1948 proved a good one for me". He had already met a number of great Yorkshire players including George Hirst and he was delighted by an end of season newspaper report in which Herbert Sutcliffe predicted that Trueman would play for Yorkshire before he was nineteen and for England before he was twenty-one.
As the 1949 season began, Trueman was surprised to receive a telegram from Yorkshire which told him he had been chosen to play for the first team in the opening first-class matches against Cambridge University at Fenner's and Oxford University at the Parks.
First-class and international cricket career
Trueman made his first-class debut on Wednesday, 11 May 1949 in the three-day match against Cambridge which Yorkshire won by 9 wickets. He was mistakenly described as a spin bowler in the Wisden match report. Opening the bowling in both innings with Brian Close, who was medium pace, Trueman took two for 72 and one for 22 as Cambridge were dismissed for 283 and 196 respectively. Yorkshire scored 317 for six declared and 164 for one so Trueman, who was number 11 in the order, did not bat. Trueman's first wicket was that of opening batsman Robert Morris, who was caught by Ellis Robinson for 19. In the second innings, Trueman bowled the future Sussex and England batsman Hubert Doggart for 23. Three other debutants that day who all became England players were Close and opening batsman Frank Lowson for Yorkshire; and Middlesex fast bowler John Warr for Cambridge. Many years later, Warr wrote the biographical piece about Trueman in Barclays World of Cricket. Trueman had match figures of six for 72 in his second match against Oxford, which Yorkshire lost by 69 runs. A month later, he took eight for 70 against the Minor Counties on his first appearance at Lord's, bowling unchanged through the second innings. Commenting on his first County Championship match, against Surrey at Park Avenue, Bradford, Wisden said that he bowled "fast and with effect".
As with most of their young players, Yorkshire intended to take their time over establishing Trueman and were prepared to set him aside for lengthy periods. The established pace bowlers in 1949 were Alec Coxon and Ron Aspinall, both fast-medium, while captain Norman Yardley was a "capable third seam bowler". History was against Trueman as the county rarely looked for fast bowlers with express speed, instead preferring "the medium or fast-medium bowler with his capacity for control, economy and long spells". Trueman, once he became established, was a clear breach of Yorkshire tradition.