Richard Sharp

The death has been announced of the England rugby captain, Richard Sharp at the age of 87. For an all too brief period in the early 1960s, Sharp was the brightest star in rugby. What is less well known is that he was also a fine cricketer, who played 9 times for Old Blundellians in the Cricketer Cup, including the 1976 final when they lost to Tonbridge. Sharp made two fifties for the Blundellians, with a top score of 74, and also played for Cornwall. He made his England rugby debut in 1960, while still an undergraduate at Oxford, and won 14 caps and a British Lions tour before retiring from international rugby when he was only 27. Who can forget the grainy images of that magical try he scored against Scotland in 1963, when he was England captain and sold three audacious dummies to ghost through the Scottish defence? Bernard Cornwell later named the hero of his Napoleonic War books after him, so taken was he by that moment.