Sporting Witness
Sporting Witness
David Steele: 'The bank clerk who went to war'
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August 15, 2019
9 minutes
Available for over a year
At the 1975 Ashes test at Lord's, 33-year-old David Steele became an unlikely hero to the English public on his test debut. With a mop of grey hair, glasses and a cap rather than a helmet, Steele defied the feared Australian pace attack of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. Christened “The Bank Clerk who Went To War” by the tabloids, Steele was sponsored by a local butcher at the rate of one lamb chop per run. He talks to Simon Watts.
(Photo: David Steele in 1975)