In these days of intense professional sport, it is hard to imagine an individual pursuing high-level careers in both cricket and football. Yet Derek Ufton was not only a first-class cricketer for Kent for many seasons, he also played more than 250 games for Charlton Athletic and was English football’s oldest surviving international.
It was, however, the briefest of international careers and not a happy one, a single cap won playing for England against a Rest of Europe team at Wembley in 1953. The match ended in a 4-4 draw and in the first half, in particular, the England defence, with Ufton playing at centre-half, struggled. “They pulverised us,” he recalled. He was, wrote one journalist, like a “fish out of water . . .