1st June 2000

Cricketer Charles Grieve died in Shropshire

Charles Grieve was an all-round sportsman who represented Guernsey at both cricket and rugby. He wasn’t born on the island; nor did he live or die there, but his parents had retired there, so it perhaps seemed appropriate.

He opened the batting for Guernsey, facing Marylebone Cricket Club in 1934. In that match, he scored a total of 106 runs over two innings. Of these, he notched up a century in the first innings alone.

He only played one first class match, in which he scored decidedly fewer runs. His total was just eight on that occasion, again across two innings.

All-round sportsman

Grieve was born in the Philippines in 1913, studied at Oxford and played rugby and cricket while at college. According to his obituary in The Telegraph, he “was the ideal build for a fly-half – small, stocky and nimble”

While still at college, he was selected to play for Scotland but was so badly injured that he was out of action for most of the next year.

It wasn’t purely by chance that he was asked to play for Scotland: he had a long association with the country. Although born in Manilla, he had been sent back to the UK to go to school, and spent the holidays in St Andrews, Scotland. His aunt still lived there. Naturally, this is where his interest in golf developed and, as well as succeeding in cricket and rugby, he would later prove himself to be a winning golfer, too.

Outside of sport, he spent his life in the army, eventually being promoted to the rank of major.

Charles Grieve died in Ludlow, Shropshire, on 1 June 2000, aged 86.