I WAS working for the Coal Board as an underground fitter on the coal face when I got my first chance to play for Derbyshire.

It was for the Under-17s against Yorkshire in 1950. I bowled 10 overs and took 1-11 and the secretary, Will Taylor, awarded me my first one-month contract after that.

They extended it and I was still only 17 years old when I got the call to play my first Championship game against Hampshire at Chesterfield in June 1951. They probably thought it would bring more people in if a local lad was playing!

I had one wicket in that game and I was back in the side when we went back to Queen's Park for the game against Worcestershire the next month.

Worcestershire batted first and I got 1-54 as they scored 268. It wasn't a great start but we had some rain after the first day and in those days only the ends of the wickets were covered, so it was turning sharply by the time I came on to bowl in the second innings.

We scored 141 in our first innings, which was a lot of ground to make up, and Worcester had moved on to 53-2 in the second innings.

Our leg-spinner was Bert Rhodes, Harold's dad, and he was asked to go on to bowl but he didn't want to, so Guy Willatt put me on at the Lake End instead. The rest is history.

Worcestershire had some good players – Don Kenyon, George Dews, Bob Broadbent – but I went through them all and finished with 8-21 in 10.1 overs.

I just set out to bowl line and length, as I'd been taught to bowl, because if you're going to get 8-21 you can't afford to bowl any bad deliveries.

If I'd done any different, Cliff Gladwin was the senior professional and he would have given me some stick because he could be a bit of a tartar on the field, even though you couldn't wish to meet a nicer fellow off it.

We lost the game because Dick Howorth and Reg Perks bowled us out for 66 but I was very happy to have had the chance to show what I could do.

All the same, I wasn't picked for the next county game and I was sent to play against Lincolnshire seconds, where I got 0-100.

I played three first-class games that year and the next year, I played about 10. That's the way it was done in those days with the younger players.

In 1954, I got my county cap and I carried on until 1971. I was always proud to play for Derbyshire but that match against Worcester will always be special to me.