Worcestershire stars of yesteryear were back at New Road today for a luncheon to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the club's 1964 County Championship title triumph.
The county won the title for the first time by 41 points from Warwickshire after winning 18 of their 28 games – and then retained it the following year and finished runners-up in 1966.
Paceman Jack Flavell was named one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Year after taking 101 wickets including 46 in five matches during August after returning from injury.
Opening batsman Ron Headley said: "It brings back a lot of happy memories. The main point is we had a wonderful team captained by Don Kenyon.
"That was the trigger basically. Don was not only a good skipper on the field, he was a good skipper off the field.
"Every player would dive under a bus for Don. He treated us all as men and lifted us all up. We respected him.
"In those days you didn't say 'Don', you said 'Skip'. It was about respect and, of course, he was a great player himself.
"His record was phenomenal, no helmets, uncovered wickets."
Wicket-keeper Roy Booth said: "In 1963 it looked as though we were going to win it outright to the last day when Yorkshire beat Glamorgan up at Harrogate in two days.
"We were at the top and they had to win it to win the championship which was very disappointing.
"We won it the following year and had two top bowlers in Jack Flavell and Len Coldwell and other sides said the same about them.
"I've been in Yorkshire this week and Raymond Illingworth and Dickie Bird were both saying the same, you had two good opening bowlers, that there wouldn't be two better in the championship.
"Jim Standen got wickets and things went well for us. We had a good batting line-up and well deserved to win it in the end.
"One thing about it was we had a good captain. He wasn't over technical was Don but he was a team player who would sacrifice personal centuries going for runs to get a declaration.
"He played for the team and everyone did the same."
