David Steele: 'The bank clerk who went to war'
In 1975, the veteran cricketer became an unlikely English hero in the Ashes series against Australia.
At the 1975 Ashes test at Lord's, 33-year-old David Steele became an unlikely hero to the English public on his test debut. With a mop of grey hair, glasses and a cap rather than a helmet, Steele defied the feared Australian pace attack of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. Christened “The Bank Clerk who Went To War” by the tabloids, Steele was sponsored by a local butcher at the rate of one lamb chop per run. He talks to Simon Watts.
(Photo: David Steele in 1975)
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