Barrie John Meyer (21 August 1932 – 13 September 2015) was an English

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er, and later a cricket

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French , , and , : (as evidenced in cricke ...

. Meyer played football for

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers FC is a men's professional football club in Bristol. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club is affiliated to Bristol Rovers W.F.C., whose team play in the FA Women's National Leag ...

in 139 league matches, scoring 60

goal A goal or objective is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to ...

s. He also played for

Plymouth Argyle Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. The team currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. The club has played ...

, Newport County,

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England. The team compete in the , the second level of the English football league system. Founded in 1894, the club competed in the Southern League and Western L ...

and

Hereford United Hereford United Football Club was an association football club based in Hereford, England. They played at Edgar Street for their entire history. They were nicknamed 'The Whites' or 'The Lilywhites', after their predominantly white kit, or 'Th ...

. In the summer, he worked as a member of the groundstaff at

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, founded in 1870, is one of 18 first-class cricket, first-class county cricket, county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the Historic counties of England, hist ...

. A good

wicket-keeper In cricket, the wicket-keeper is the Cricket player, player on the fielding (cricket), fielding side who stands behind the wicket, ready to stop Delivery (cricket), deliveries that pass the batsman, and take a Caught, catch, Stumped, stump the ...

, he played for

in 406

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

matches from 1957 to 1971. He took 707 catches and 119 stumpings, but was a relatively poor batsman - his career first-class

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

is only 14.19, with a highest score of 63. Meyer was born in

Bournemouth Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest ...

. When he retired, he became a cricket

. He umpired 26

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...

s in England from 1978 to 1993, including the 1981

Ashes Ashes may refer to: * Ash, the solid remnants of fires. Media and entertainment Art * ''Ashes'' (Munch), an 1894 painting by Edvard Munch Film * ''The Ashes'' (film), a 1965 Polish film by director Andrzej Wajda * ''Ashes'' (1922 film), ...

Test at

Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingley ...

. He also umpired 23

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s from 1977 to 1993, including the

Cricket World Cup The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is a quadrennial world cup for cricket in One Day International (ODI) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and consid ...

finals at

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket List of Test cricket grounds, venue in St John's Wood, Westminster. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex C ...

in 1979 and 1983. Meyer officiated along with David Evans during the 1984

test between England and the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

where the then record of lbw dismissals was equalled, although this record has now been exceeded on numerous occasions. In the West Indies first innings Meyer gave West Indies batsman

Viv Richards Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards (born 7 March 1952) is a retired Antiguan cricketer who represented the West Indies cricket team between 1974 and 1991. Usually batting at number three in a dominant West Indies side, Richards is widely ...

out lbw. According to '

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

': "Umpire Meyer later stated that he may have made a mistake, and that he had considered recalling Richards". However, the West Indies won the match easily in any case. Meyer holds the accolade of being the only footballer in history to score a goal against Manchester United in the FA Cup and go on to become a Test match umpire. He scored in Bristol Rovers' 4–0 win over Manchester United in the third round of the cup at Eastville on 7 January 1956, which was United's 9th biggest defeat in FA Cup history. In 2006, he published an autobiography, ''Getting It Right'', co-authored with

Andrew Hignell Andrew Keith Hignell (born 12 October 1959 in Gloucester) is a cricket historian and scorer. Hignell has a PhD in Geography from Cardiff University. He has been the Glamorgan 1st XI scorer since 1982. For over 25 years he combined a career as a ...

. Meyer's son Adrian was also a footballer, making 144 appearances and scoring 12 goals, for

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...

, many in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

, before injury curtailed his career. He died at the age of 83 in 2015.

References

External links

*
Barrie Meyer
from CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, Barrie 1932 births 2015 deaths English cricketers Gloucestershire cricketers English Test cricket umpires English One Day International cricket umpires English men's footballers Bristol Rovers F.C. players Bristol City F.C. players Plymouth Argyle F.C. players Newport County A.F.C. players Hereford United F.C. players Footballers from Bournemouth Cricketers from Dorset Men's association football forwards Wicket-keepers English Football League players 20th-century English sportsmen

See also

References

External links