What's In A Name?

Michael Henderson

‘Pottsy’ has been in the wickets again. Matthew Potts, the Durham speedster, took 9 for 68 against Lancashire, making it 12 for the match. So it wasn’t such a bad thing for him to miss the Oval Test, after contributing to England’s win against Sri Lanka at Lord’s. As he waxed, they waned.

Do his pals call him ‘Pottsy’? Probably, because the modern-day cricketer has little use for an unusual nickname. Look at the team he left behind. ‘Popey’ led them out at the Oval, in place of the stricken ‘Stokesy’. He was followed down the steps by ‘Rooty’, ‘Brooky’, and ‘Woakesy’. You can’t have much fun with names like those.

Those of a more imaginative bent immediately dubbed Potts ‘Caractacus’, after the madcap inventor in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It’s a gimme. How easily it slips off the tongue, those four syllables capped by the explosive monosyllabic surname. Yet, in that dressing-room, does anybody know of the eccentric brought to life on screen by Dick van Dyke?

‘Jimmy’ went earlier this year, following his mate ‘Broady’ into the rose garden of retirement, assuming that he will never bowl another ball for Lancashire. They were chums with ‘Swanny’ and ‘Cooky’, though the former captain also answered to ‘Chef’. Not bad, though ‘Escoffier’ might have worked better.

Potts should be ‘Caractacus’, just as Dan Lawrence should be ‘Friar’ – and yes, I know the cleric in Romeo and Juliet is spelled with a U, not a W. Phonetically it sounds right. A good deal more correct than Lawrence’s peculiar batting.

Some nicknames conform to type. There’s ‘Dusty’ Miller, ‘Smudger’ Smith, ‘Creepy’ Crawley, ‘Chalky’ White, and ‘Yosser’ Hughes. Others derive from initials. Allan Border was ‘AB’ (as well as Captain Grumpy), and Allan Donald ‘AD’ (as well as White Lightning). John Murray was ‘JT’, Peter May ‘PBH’, and Fred Trueman ‘FS’. Christopher Martin-Jenkins was always ‘CMJ’, and Mark Nicholas, the new chairman of MCC, is ‘MCJ’.

Trueman’s other pet name was ‘Fiery Fred’, because, as he said, ‘it rhymes with Trueman, just as ‘Typhoon’ rhymes with (Frank) Tyson’. Well spoken, Fred.

Viv Richards, nominally ‘Viv’, graduated to ‘the Master Blaster’, for his thunderous strokeplay. Rahul Dravid was ‘the Wall’, which undervalued his all-round gifts. Dilip Vengsarkar, of military bearing, was ‘the Colonel’. ER Dexter of Radley College and Cambridge was ‘Lord Ted’. Derek Underwood, unplayable on drying pitches, was ‘Deadly’.

Keith Miller, who had the Midas touch, was ‘Nugget’. Hugh ‘Toey’ Tayfield, the South African off-spinner, had a peculiar habit with his right boot before bowling each ball. ‘Flat Jack’ Simmons, another off-spinner, was reluctant to flight the ball. Brian ‘Tonker’ Taylor liked to biff it hard and often.

Eddie Barlow, a portly chap who wore glasses, was ‘Bunter’. The red-haired David Bairstow was ‘Bluey’. Phil Carrick, Bairstow’s team-mate at Yorkshire, was ‘Fergie’, after the Northern Ireland town of Carrickfergus. Andrew Flintoff was ‘Freddie’, as in Flintstone.

‘Goose’ Willis, ‘Beefy’ Botham, ‘Foxy’ Fowler, ‘Walter’ Allott. All good. Neil Mallender, pale of cheek, was ‘Ghost’, prompting Trueman to tell Test Match Special listeners, ‘I’m not sure he’s a well man’. Chris Old, for obvious reasons, was ‘Chilly’. Geoff Arnold, initials GG, was ‘Horse’.

Robin Smith was ‘Judge’, on account of his wavy hair. Joel Garner was ‘Big Bird’, and Clive Lloyd ‘Hubert’. In their early days, when his twin brother Steve was cracking on ahead of him, Mark was ‘Afghan’, the forgotten Waugh/war, though he made up for it.

In the TMS box Brian Johnston dubbed the blazered Don Mosey ‘the Alderman’, while Bill Frindall, the hirsute notcher, became ‘the Bearded Wonder’. Neville Oliver, the Australian commentator, was ‘the Doctor’, as in ‘No’. Trevor Bailey, the world-class blocker who joined the radio team, was ‘Barnacle’.

Among the scribes Alan Lee was ‘Leapy’, Chris Lander ‘Crash’, and Martin Johnson ‘Scoop’ (he never bothered with stories). John Woodcock owes his sobriquet, ‘the Sage’, to fellow Times writer Alan Gibson. Scyld Berry, still with us after all these years, has long been ‘Batty’ for his habit of barking up the wrong tree. David Frost, the Guardian’s rugby union man for many years, was well-spoken and thirsty; hence ‘Lord Sauce’.

Pat Murphy, the BBC radio man, had a sharp eye for appearance, so a besuited England and Wales Cricket Board press officer was ‘the Tory candidate’. He also christened a sloppily-shod Australian cameraman ‘the cultural attache’, and an ear-wigging reporter became ‘Marco Tardelli’, after the Italian footballer who never left opponents alone.

Woakes, one gathers, answers to ‘the Wizard’, even though he comes from Sutton Coldfield, not Kansas. So there’s hope. But they had better get their skates on, these England players. Ben Duckett, after the character played by Patricia Routledge (spelled Bucket but pronounced Bouquet) should be Hyacinth. Pope, for instance, is surely ‘the Pontiff’, or ‘White Smoke’. As for Brook, either ‘no argument’. or perhaps "‘Becher’s’. Not the best lines, but a start.

And the best nickname? David Steele, of Derbyshire and Northants, whose fists were allegedly tight in the saloon bar, was ‘Crime’. That’s high-class. Paul Romaines of Gloucestershire was ‘Human’.

A special prize should go to JWHT Douglas, captain of Essex and England: Johnny Won’t Hit Today. Whoever thought of that can never have had to buy a round in all his born days. A bit better than ‘Rooty’.