How it all began…

It was 1975 at the age of 13 and I was lucky enough to own my first pair of Red Alan Knott wicket keeping gloves, which my mum and dad had bought me for being selected for the Warwickshire U13’s.

Not long after I bought the book Alan Knott on wicket keeping and within the detailed pictures, I could see that “Knotty” had some alterations to his gloves, namely the web was larger.

That was it! I made a template of the shape in cardboard, cut some leather out of the backs of an old pair of gloves and asked mum for her sewing basket and the strongest needle and thread and away I went.
I then purchased some red dye for the local shoe repair shop to finish my work, I felt very proud with myself!

As time went on, I began re-facing my own gloves, adding webs to my Bob Taylor Mitre gloves, which I am sure you all will know came without webs, as Bob thought a web was cheating!

I was even nervous at what he would say when one day I after finishing a training session on what was known as the colts ground at Edgbaston, I purposely went to seek him out at close of play to ask him to sign my gloves and indeed his book Wicket keeping by Bob Taylor.

Bob has always been known for his friendly nature and having time to say hello and chat cricket with fans,, there was no exception here as I gained the courage to approach, he just said ‘Hello, how are you?’ and made me feel at ease straight away.
Saying ‘You have the gloves and the book – What do you think of them? ‘

He then spent half an hour chatting with me, little did I know that many years later when in my early thirties that I would not only meet Bob again, but also my other hero Alan Knott, and that I was lucky enough to be coached by them both on several occasions and dig deep into their vast knowledge of wicket keeping, even till today I cannot believe how lucky I was.

I was 18 when I played my first County Second XI match against arch rivals Worcestershire. I had managed to gain small amount of sponsorship from Slazenger. This is when I first met the man who was to become my adopted uncle Geoff Wymer.

Geoff was the contact at Slazenger for getting my gloves made. I would go to see him and although the gloves had to look as per the Red Alan Knott gloves or latterly the Black Paul Downton gloves, I was always asking for various differences to the gloves that went to the shops.
Once, when all the main manufacturers other than bat-making went to India, Geoff set up GW sports with his machinist Val, and that is where a couple of years later we made an agreement to work together.
Geoff the craftsman, me continually trying new ideas with hopefully some idea of wicket keeping and what keepers wanted from their gloves.

I taught myself to sew as Val kept things close to her chest! Having lost her job to overseas production she was not an easy nut to crack to share her expertise. Geoff on the other hand taught me how to make patterns and cut the various leathers and I taught myself to sew.

I kept my word that I would never set up my own business away from Geoff until he retired. Geoff finally called it a day in 2016 when Val was sadly too ill to continue working.

I went to visit and have lunch with Geoff and his wife Pat collected various pieces of machinery that emanated from the original Slazenger factory that we still use today at Classic Keeper.

It was a touching few hours as I am pleased to say Geoff and Pat were only too pleased to know that after all the years of working together, I was still looking to continue the lineage and to keep the craftsmanship alive. Sadly, Geoff passed in 2017 a very sad loss, but I owe him so much!