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Tributes to a cricket and football master
Mike Barnard, who has died at the age of 85, was a star player for Portsmouth FC and Hampshire Cricket Club in the 1950s
December 27, 2018 11:36
Mike Barnard, who has died at the age of 85, was a star player for Portsmouth FC and Hampshire Cricket Club in the 1950s
December 27, 2018 11:36There is a very short list of professional British players who reached the top flight in not one but two sports.
When it comes to Jewish sportsmen, there is just one.
Mike Barnard, who has died at the age of 85, was a star player for Portsmouth FC in the 1950s, the days of the old First Division.
Described as “arguably the greatest sportsman Portsmouth has ever produced”, he was also a celebrated cricketer with Hampshire. He scored more than 9,600 runs and took 312 catches in his 14-year, 285-match career at the club, helping them win the county championship in 1961.
He also scored centuries against Australia and India in tour matches.
In his footballing career at his home-town club Pompey, which he joined at the age of 18 in 1951, he played 123 matches, scoring 26 goals as an inside forward.
He also played rugby for Hampshire during his school days at Portsmouth Grammar, which he joined in 1945. His form master’s very first report described him as being “good at games”.
Barnard was one of four brothers from a second generation Jewish family in Portsmouth, whose ancestor, Rabbi Daniel Barnard, had come to England from Prague in 1782.
Their father ran a garage business just 100 yards from Portsmouth dockyard. But when the war came and with it the threat of German bombs, the family moved to Havant, a few miles north east of the bombers’ targets. Within a year, the old business had been flattened.
Barnard’s nephew, Professor Simon Barnard, 63, an optometrist from Finchley, said: “My uncle was a wonderful character and a fine sportsman.
“My father David, now 94, is the last remaining of the four brothers who all went to Portsmouth Grammar School, and he used to take me to watch Uncle Mike play cricket, but of course I was born too late to see him play football.
“My dad was a decent tennis player in the RAF team and once challenged Mike, who did not play the game, to a match....and Mike wiped the floor with my dad! He was that good.”
Barnard made his debut for Portsmouth on Boxing Day 1953 in a 1-1 draw with Spurs, but quit Portsmouth at the age of 25 and later joined Southern League Chelmsford FC, who were able to match Pompey’s £20 a week wage.
Managed by his former Blues team-mate Harry Ferrier, Barnard even interrupted his honeymoon to play a home match against Gravesend & Northfleet, netting four times in a 7-1 win.
In 1969 Barnard was seriously injured in a coach crash in Germany, breaking his spine. But he battled on to become a well-loved sports commentator on Radio Solent and Southampton Hospital Radio, reporting regularly on matches from the Rose Bowl.
Hampshire CCC are planning a special commemorative event later next year for Barnard, who is survived by his three children; Emma, John and Robert, and grandchildren.
Barnard also played in matches against Manchester United both before and after the 1958 Munich air disaster.
