Johnny Arnold

Cricket

Playing career

Born in Cowley in November 1907, Arnold played minor counties cricket for Oxfordshire in 1929, making eight appearances in the Minor Counties Championship. He scored 650 runs for Oxfordshire during the season, at an average of 52.75, helping them to secure their first Minor Counties Championship title with an important innings of 62 not out against Buckinghamshire. In August 1929, he made his debut in first-class cricket for Hampshire against the touring South Africans at Southampton, having been recommended by Oxford-born Hampshire cricketer Alex Bowell. By the following season he had qualified by residency to represent Hampshire in the County Championship. Arnold made 23 appearances in the 1931 County Championship, predominantly as an attacking opening batsman alongside George Brown. He scored a thousand runs in his first full season, ending with 1,186 at an average of 32.05, which included two centuries. He topped the county batting averages that season, slightly ahead of Phil Mead. Arnold began the 1931 season in good form, and by June he was on the England selectors minds for the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's, with Arnold ultimately being selected to open the batting alongside fellow debutant Fred Bakewell. The selection of both Arnold and Bakewell was necessitated by the retirement of Jack Hobbs the previous season, coupled with an injury to Herbert Sutcliffe. Arnold was dismissed in England's first innings without…

Arnold married Gladys Collins, the niece of the Leeds United footballer Ernie Hart, at Southampton in February 1939. He remained in the Southampton area during the Second World War and was involved with the National Fire Service. Following the war, he ran The Criterion public house in St Mary's Road in Southampton from 1946 to the early 1950s. Arnold died in a Southampton hospital on 3 April 1984.