| Alfred Pullin | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alfred William Pullin 30 July 1860 Abergwili, Carmarthenshire, Wales |
| Died | 23 June 1934 (aged 73) London, England |
| Resting place | Wakefield Cemetery, Wakefield, Yorkshire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Other names | Old Ebor |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Known for | Sports journalism |
Alfred William Pullin, known by the pseudonym Old Ebor (30 July 1860 – 23 June 1934), was a British sports journalist who wrote about rugby union and cricket. He wrote mainly for British newspapers the Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post. Considered by critics to be one of the greatest authorities on his two sports in the country, he wrote a daily column using his pseudonym "Old Ebor" for 40 years. Most often associated with his reporting on Yorkshire County Cricket Club, he has been credited as defining the role of a sports journalist. Two of his most widely known works were on cricket: Talks with Old English Cricketers and History of Yorkshire County Cricket, 1903–23.
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Pullin was born in Abergwili, Carmarthenshire in 1860, to Alfred Trask Pullin, a teacher, and his wife, Adelaide Evans. His father was ordained in 1875 and moved to Yorkshire as a curate. Pullin first worked in journalism in 1880, as Castleford district reporter on the Wakefield Express before moving to the Yorkshire Post as Bradford reporter.[1] With a family background in rugby union, he played for Cleckheaton as three quarter back in the early 1880s, but was not successful enough to pursue his sporting career. Later, he became a rugby referee.[2]
During the 1890s, newspapers began to develop sports pages. Pullin became cricket and rugby union correspondent for the Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post, writing under the pseudonym "Old Ebor". He followed the Yorkshire and England cricket and rugby teams around the country, not missing an England rugby international for 40 years. Pullin's reputation quickly grew among followers of sport.[1] He became very familiar to the Yorkshire cricket team, becoming associated with them at a time when the team rose to a position of dominance, and the club remained very important to him.[1][2][3] Wisden Cricketers' Almanack later wrote of him that "his writings were at all times discriminative, informative and voluminous".[2] On average, he wrote two columns each day in summer, during the cricket season, and one per day in the winter.[2] Len Hutton later wrote that he and many others in Yorkshire had been brought up on Pullin's writing, while all cricketers were in his debt for the influence of his writing. Hutton himself as a young player appreciated Pullin's encouragement "in and out of print".[4]
Pullin wrote several cricket books, including Talks with Old English Cricketers (1900), a biography of Alfred Shaw (1902) and The History of Yorkshire County Cricket 1903–23 (1924). The first of these was his most widely known. It arose from a series of articles written over the winter of 1898 for the Yorkshire Evening Post,[5] where he interviewed former players and reflected some of their experiences after retirement.[1] Encountering the desperate circumstances in which many former players lived, Pullin was moved to campaign on their behalf: when investigating the whereabouts of John Thewlis, Pullin was told "Think dead; if not, Manchester".[5] Pullin later wrote about Thewlis, "The moral responsibilities of cricket managers, so far as a player is concerned, should surely not end with the termination of his active career. He ought not to be cast aside like an old shoe."[6] Pullin's attacks on Yorkshire County Cricket Club and general cricket administration aroused public support and led to reforms such as winter pay for players;[5] Thewlis, for example, was given work as a groundsman and provided with a pension.[6] Lincoln Allison notes that the book reflected Pullin's close and sympathetic relationship with the players and describes it as a pioneering work as the unhappy experiences of cricketers after retirement was a phenomenon not widely known at the time.[1] Derek Hodgson, in the official history of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, writes that Pullin "produced one of the most valuable source books on Victorian cricket".[5]
Lord Hawke, writing a foreword to his history of Yorkshire, referred to Pullin as the non-playing member of the county team: "His criticisms on our side form an invaluable guide to the captain, his enthusiasm is contagious, but never allows his judgement to become unbalanced, whilst his eloquent writings on cricket have gone to every part of the world in which there are lovers of the game...I feel bound to say to the esteemed author of this book—`Well done, thou faithful friend.'"[2] In the 1920s, he was included in the Births and deaths section of Wisden, a rarity for non-players, due to his standing as a reporter. Wisden described him as one of the greatest authorities on cricket.[2] Pullin retired in 1931. Although his reputation was later obscured by writers such as Neville Cardus, Allison believes that "Pullin's greatest achievement was to define the role of the journalist in sport as the critic, popularizer, and interpreter of a particular team to its public."[1]
E.W. Swanton, who was a press box colleague for the last few years of Pullin's career, describes him as "a thick, bearded fellow" and "a faithful old war-horse". Regarding his Talks with Old English Cricketers Swanton writes: "It was his revelations about the straits of poverty to which some of these heroes of the past were reduced that first roused the conscience of the public and the county committees, Yorkshire's not least."[7]
Pullin was married to Alice Ramsden, and the couple had three sons. He died in 1934 while travelling to a Test match at Lord's Cricket Ground. He collapsed on a bus and was pronounced dead on his arrival at hospital. He was buried in Wakefield cemetery.[1] Hutton, who had just broken into the Yorkshire team aged 18, wrote that he "had just got into the habit of looking for that kindly, alert, grey-bearded face of Mr Pullin's either among the players before the day's play or in a Press-tent".[4]