Norman Horner

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Norman Frederick Horner (May 10, 1926 - December 24, 2003) was an English first class cricketer who played two games for Yorkshire CCC in 1950 before moving to Warwickshire County Cricket Club in 1951. A right handed batsman, he made 18533 runs at 29.79 in his 363 game career before retiring in 1965 to work in landscape gardening and as a cricket groundsman.

A neat, dapper batsman, he formed a powerful opening partnership with the powerful Fred Gardner and scored a thousand runs in every season up to 1964. M.J.K. Smith commented that "Norman would have run Fred's legs off him if he had been allowed." He went down the order in 1958 when M.C.C. asked Warwickshire to promote Smith to develop him for a possible England opening spot. Horner enjoyed scoring quickly and enjoyed his best three seasons from 1959 to 1961. On a flat Oval pitch in 1960 he scored a career-best 203 not out and put on 377 with Billy Ibadulla for the first wicket on the first day, then the highest unbroken opening partnership in cricket history. He was quick in the covers and took 130 catches. He retired in 1965 to concentrate on landscape gardening and his work as a groundsman.