George Woodcock

Who was George Woodcock?

George Woodcock played first-class cricket in one match for Somerset in 1921. He was born at Warrington, then in Lancashire, and died at Bruton, Somerset.

Woodcock was a right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm medium-pace bowler. His single first-class cricket appearance was as a member of what was, according to Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, "a very weak Somerset team" in the match against Cambridge University at Cambridge in May 1921. Somerset were beaten by an innings within two days, but Woodcock's own contribution was not insubstantial. In the first innings, he made only five, but his medium pace bowling took four of the seven Cambridge wickets to fall. Then, when Somerset fell to 84 for eight wickets in the second innings, requiring 301 to make Cambridge bat again and with Cuthbert Fairbanks-Smith unable to bat, Woodcock and Edward Baker, a pre-First World War Cambridge cricketer also playing his only match for Somerset, put on 128 for the ninth wicket, each of them making 63.

Despite this personal success, Woodcock never played first-class cricket again.