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Ex-weekly sports editor writes biography of cricket ‘tyrant’

A former weekly newspaper sports editor has written a biography of a cricketing “tyrant”.

Mark Rowe’s book tells the life story of Brian Sellers, who led Yorkshire County Cricket Club to six County Championships in eight seasons prior to the Second World War.

After retiring as a Yorkshire player, Sellers chaired the club until standing down in 1970 amid the controversy which followed the sacking of captain Brian Close and appointment of Geoffrey Boycott.

Mark, who was sports editor at the Ryedale Gazette & Herald, used archive stories from the Yorkshire Evening Press, the York-based daily now known as The Press, to research the book.

Yorkshire Tyrant

Mark told The Press: “Sellers comes across as a fierce man who was not someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of. When he grew up, discipline was given and taken automatically in a way that would be outrageous today.

“As a player – and then as an administrator – he only wanted the best for the club and for the game of cricket in general.

“If his ‘one-man rule’ wasn’t to people’s taste, surely the decades of bickering at the club after his time were even worse. Having a tyrant in charge is not necessarily bad.”

The paperback, priced £15, has been published by the Association of Cricket Statisticians, and can be purchased online.