Clive Rosevear Eulogy
There were full houses at Penmount Crematorium, Bethel Methodist Church & the wake at The Brittania Inn, Par to give Clive a fitting send-off.
There were four Eulogies given at Bethel.
A Family tribute, a close friend including a Masonic tribute, a Carer tribute and the following Cricket Eulogy.
Clive Rosevear Cricket Eulogy - by Michael Weeks BEM (Cornwall Cricket League Hon Secretary)
I’ve been asked by the family to say a few words about Clive’s long and notable cricketing life.
In recent years, somehow, I’ve got elevated to the position of Cornwall Cricket League Secretary and with Clive already well established as the League President we both ended up near the top of the ladder it could be said.
However, our cricket friendship goes back the best part of thirty years and I can truthfully say it has been a complete honour and pleasure.
My colleague Robert Jobson remembers Clive as a left-handed batsman, known as Mini.
He played his cricket for St Stephen, Gorran, Grampound Road and the Cornish Crusaders.
Robert says a highlight of his sporting career was the Crusaders’ tour to Kent in 1971, led by the author Michael Williams and Father Ken Rogers.
In later years I also got to know them both and can only imagine the fun that tour must have been.
Just over a year ago, we lost another stalwart of Cornish Cricket, Colonel Ronnie Potts who in his time was President of both the County Club and Cornwall League.
In researching his obituary I came across a little-known fact regarding Clive.
In 1968 Charles Crouch of Wadebridge announced he would be retiring as the League’s Eastern Section Secretary after 17 years.
To help out Clive was appointed the Assistant Secretary for a year.
Ronnie Potts then took on the General duties with other members dividing up the various roles.
Clive went on to coach and manage Cornwall Colts and in 1980 joined the League Umpires Panel for the East of the county.
The great East-West divide was where a number of us were earlier today with Polwhele Cricket Club being opposite the main gates of Penmount.
They were an Eastern club while Truro has always been in the West.
Clive spent nine seasons as an umpire on the circuit officiating the top games.
He was also instrumental in getting the first overseas players over from West Indies. Being also very good mates with Colin Paige, who was the manager of Kent, he used to get them down fairly regularly. Nick remembers some of them staying with the family, including John Shepherd among others. Happy days!
In 1993 his Insurance company sponsored the 20 over Hawkey Cup competition.
That has continued until this day and had it not been for the covid season 2022 would have been the sponsorship’s thirtieth final.
The League has been most grateful for such support and continuity.
That 1993 final was played at Wadebridge, a fifth different host venue in as many years.
The following year it was moved just down the road from here to St Austell’s ground at Wheal Eliza.
One imagines it was out of respect to the new local sponsor, as well as being one of our top county venues.
All but two finals have been played there since.
That is where my friendship with Clive began after I volunteered to become the League’s first Honorary Press Officer in early 1995.
The post was invented to give our sponsors some publicity.
In that respect, I felt duty-bound to attend the Final, and have made the early July trek from Camborne, in rush hour traffic, each year since.
Though neutral of course Clive had a special glint in his eye on the evenings when one of his former clubs won the Cup.
Gorran and Grampound Road have both been victorious on three occasions in the last thirty years.
Clive has been responsible for providing the player trophies and always took great pride in making sure each year had a different design.
Many players will have proud momentos on display.
The League ran Sunday competitions for several years but attitudes to cricket on the Sabbath were changing. The Sunday Complementary Cup for Division 3 and below was struggling for entries so a new 20-over Evening competition was organised in 2008 - sponsored by you know who!
The popular Clive Rosevear Cup will continue to be a competition in memory of Clive.
For 34 years from 1976, the League only had three Presidents.
Jack Littlejohns, Ronnie Potts and Mike Buzza.
The post remained unfilled for a year until I suggested that Clive might be a suitable candidate.
He was delighted to accept in 2012 and was to hold the position for ten years, to the day, before standing down a year ago for health reasons.
He said to me at the time “thank you for ten wonderful years.”
He did the League proud by attending Management meetings and was part of the presentation ceremony at the various finals.
Former League Chairman Andrew Kent told me this week that those end-of-season tours of grounds were a joy.
Clive would arrive and immediately engage with all and sundry.
The presentations were always carried out with a smile and often a suitable word or comment which lightened the occasion.
Not content with that he would be seen around the county on Saturdays, often in tandem with his good friend, umpire Dave Higman.
I gather some trips to the likes of Werrington were social, to say the least.
Very social some might say with late homecomings to St Austell with the list of excuses to Joyce.
Clive was also a great supporter of the County Club and was a common sight making his tour of the boundary.
In 2003, in a first, Cornwall played abroad, if you discount our regular trips to Wales.
It was our last game in the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy, where the professional first-class counties also participated.
In May of that year, we played Kent at Truro with current England supremo Rob Key making runs.
In late August the first round of the 2004 competition saw us drawn away to the Netherlands.
In the words of his son Nick, “Dad's trip to Amsterdam to watch Cornwall with Father Ken is legendary “.
I don’t think I need to know anymore.
For several years I had the honour of writing the nightly match reports of County games for the Western Morning News.
At the time that was the oracle for match scores.
Nowadays we have live coverage online direct from the scorer's laptop and all National Counties are committed to having cameras at their grounds this year.
Back in the day, it was a pressure to compile a report with play often going on past half past seven.
I would get a message around teatime from the Morning News Office in Plymouth such as – 425 words tonight please and a scorecard.
Not always simple to report if 21 wickets had fallen in the day.
It all needed to be typed and emailed to meet a nine o’clock deadline, or even earlier if Argyle had a game that evening.
The last thing I needed was distraction phone calls but on evenings of our away games, be it at Bournemouth, Bridgnorth or Abergavenny, Clive would ring me for a nightly score update.
He was really interested and I had no problems as I knew once the news was passed on he would soon end the conversation with a comment such as “ Not the best of days then” and drop the phone.
County Club members are entitled to attend the Annual Meeting in the first week of March.
For many years they were held at City Hall in the centre of Truro.
Often falling on St Pirans Day and with the signs of early Spring in our capital it always felt right somehow.
As much of a tradition was seeing Clive climb the impressive granite stairs up to the Council Chamber.
With the paperwork already circulated the business was often over within twenty minutes so hardly worth attending unless you were a committee member for a meeting that followed.
The one exception each year would be Clive.
He would get a lift from St Austell with Club Treasurer Keith Hore.
At the conclusion of the AGM, he was politely requested to leave the Chamber and he would retire to the nearest pub to await his transport home.
Finally, in recent years, I know Clive was very proud of the cricketing exploits of his grandson Tom, captain of St Austell seconds and granddaughter Eve, who has represented the County Girls.
In all he has been a remarkable servant to Cornish cricket and he will be very sadly missed.
Rest In Peace Clive
