John Santall

Who was John Santall?

John Frank Eden Santall, sometimes known as Jack Santall was an English cricketer who played eight first-class matches for Worcestershire, all in the space of just over a month in 1930.

Santall was never a conspicuous success with the county: in 13 innings he only thrice reached double figures, and with the ball he never added to the 2–29 he took in the first innings of his debut against Essex; the first of his two victims was Stan Nichols and the other Joe Hipkin.

After such a failure, Santall walked away from cricket, instead turning his attentions to ice-skating, in which sport he proved good enough to turn professional; he also worked as a skating instructor.

Santall was born in King's Heath, Birmingham; he died at the age of 78 in Bournemouth.

Two of John's relations had long careers with Warwickshire: his father Sydney took more than 1,200 wickets before the First World War, coaching the club and acting as county historian, while his brother Frederick scored more than 17,000 runs for them between the wars.