Charles Burgess (C.B.) Fry was born in Croydon on 25th April 1872. He has been referred to as ‘The Biggest Sportsman to have ever lived’, and ‘The Superman’ – large praise certainly, but does he stay up to the nicknames?
Fry proved himself to be a good scholar as perfectly as an athlete during his time at Repton Community Faculty and Wadham University Oxford, to which he had won a scholarship. In the course of his time at Oxford he acquired 12 sporting Blues and in a single calendar year he captained the soccer, cricket and athletic groups. These kinds of determination to activity attained him the nickname ‘Almighty’ and ‘Lord Oxford’. At the exact time he was also taking part in rugby for his college, Blackheath and the Barbarians. And we actually don’t know exactly where he identified the time but he was also a excellent boxer, golfer, tennis participant, javelin thrower, sculler and swimmer.
He became a qualified footballer when he was signed to Southampton and reached the FA Cup Closing with them in 1901/02. He impressed the powers that be so significantly in the course of his debut match versus Tottenham Spurs that he was picked to enjoy for England in a match versus Eire.
He equalled the earth extensive leap record with a 23 foot 6.5 inch bounce in 1893. With no formal teaching in extended jumping he was so blasé about the celebration that he well prepared for the leap by cigarette smoking a cigar and resumed using tobacco it on completing the bounce!
At the London White Town Stadium Fry won both equally the very long jump and the 100 yards dash, at the world’s very first global athletics function. It is assumed that he was more than capable of profitable medals (additional than very likely gold) at the 1896 Olympics, but he was too chaotic in South Africa with the England cricket crew. Cricket was most definitely the activity that Fry excelled in the most. He captained each Sussex and England, and England never ever lost when he was in cost. He scored 94 initial-course generations as effectively as 6 consecutive hundreds of years – a document that nonetheless stands now. His occupation batting common was 50, and in 1901 he totalled 3147 operates, an average of 78 runs for every innings.
It was not just in activity that Fry excelled – he was director of education ship Mercury and turned boys into naval males the founder and star journalist of Fry’s journal, a publication aimed at younger men for whom Fry was a hero a deputy and speechwriter for the Indian delegation at the League of Nations and he also stood as Liberal candidate for Parliament in Brighton. It was whilst he was operating for the League of Nations that he was available the vacant throne of Albania! He did not acquire the role as he would have desired an revenue of £10,000 a year and Fry was often limited of revenue so didn’t particularly fit the profile! He also wrote cricket guides, a bestselling novel and an autobiography!
In 1921 he once again appeared for Sussex against the browsing Australians, scoring 59 and 37 in the two innings. The England selectors asked Fry to captain the countrywide facet but at 49 many years of age he declined the present and retired from cricket altogether. Fry died in 1956 and in our feeling certainly deserves the title of best sportsman to have at any time lived
