My uncle, Melville Ryan, who has died aged 82, was a cricketer who played for Yorkshire between 1954 and 1965. A willing and hard-working paceman, Mel shared the new ball with his friend Fred Trueman on many occasions. He also played for the Yorkshire Second XI (1954–62), Minor Counties (1957–58) and the International Cavaliers (1966).
A right-arm fast-medium bowler, he took 413 wickets at an average of 22.92 runs apiece, with a best return of seven for 45 against Warwickshire in 1958. He took five wickets in an innings 12 times, and twice claimed 10 wickets in a match. After retiring from first class cricket he joined Yorkshire’s cricket committee, on which he served from 1975 until 1980.
Born in Huddersfield, to John and Cora (nee Taylor), who jointly ran a small chain of newsagents called Ryans, Mel attended Huddersfield college. After national service in Egypt from 1951-53, during which time he played cricket for the army, he joined the family business. With his older brother, Granville, Mel expanded the number of Ryans shops in Huddersfield from three to nine, while also buying into other businesses.
His cricketing talent, honed by hours of playing in the back garden with Granville, had first been spotted by the great Yorkshire and England bowler George Hirst, who also hailed from Huddersfield and had seen Mel practising in the Yorkshire nets. Although Mel’s business commitments led him to turn down the offer of a full-time cricketing contract with Yorkshire, he engineered the time to play 150 first class matches as a professional over an 11-year spell, gaining his county cap at the age of 28. An all-round sportsman, he was also an accomplished golfer and skier.
Mel once self-deprecatingly declared that because of the family business he had been born “with a silver spoon in my mouth”. But he was a passionately hard-working man who made the most of what he had. Although driven and ambitious, and a typically straight-talking Yorkshireman, he was also kind and generous, and liked to live life to the full. He travelled extensively, both as a cricketer across the West Indies and the US, and to the mainland of Europe with his family, sometimes as the pilot of his own plane.
His son, James, died in a skiing accident in Italy in 2010. Mel is survived by his wife, June (nee Drake), whom he married in 1959 after they had met at a dance in Huddersfield;, by their daughter, Clare; and by three grandchildren, Alice, Elizabeth and William.
