Players.bio is a large online platform sharing the best live coverage of your favourite sports: Football, Golf, Rugby, Cricket, F1, Boxing, NFL, NBA, plus the latest sports news, transfers & scores. Exclusive interviews, fresh photos and videos, breaking news. Stay tuned to know everything you wish about your favorite stars 24/7. Check our daily updates and make sure you don't miss anything about celebrities' lives.

Contacts

  • Owner: SNOWLAND s.r.o.
  • Registration certificate 06691200
  • 16200, Na okraji 381/41, Veleslavín, 162 00 Praha 6
  • Czech Republic

Betteshanger Colliery Welfare all-rounder Derek Towe in 17-strong England over-70s squad for tour of Australia

By Kevin Redsull

Derek Towe has reached the pinnacle of his near 60-year cricketing career as a member of the England over-70s team touring Australia.

The Betteshanger Colliery Welfare all-rounder is part of a 17-strong England squad who will play 11 matches Down Under, including three one-day internationals against Australia’s over-70s team, after he helped Kent win the National Over-70s Cup.

Kent beat Suffolk by 38 runs in the final in September.

That followed on from Towe being a member of the Kent side who won the National Over-60s Cup in 2016 and 2021. But it was in the summer of 1963 Towe, aged just 11, was called up to join his father Roy - another Betteshanger stalwart - to play in a match against Tilmanstone Ravens, starting his 59-year association with the Welfare Ground club.

Trials with Surrey while he was a pupil at Dover Grammar School for Boys came to nothing, so he trained as a PE teacher and had a successful career at Dane Court Grammar School, and, in fact, he still helps at the Broadstairs school when needed.

But for the next month or so, his focus will be on playing cricket.

Towe, who turned 70 in December, said: “I’m so pleased and proud to be picked for an England Seniors side.

“The pool of players you have to pick from for the over-70s team is, obviously, smaller than it is for the over-50s and over-60s teams. But we have a very skilful squad with a wealth of knowledge and tremendous cricketing careers.”

Towe, who lives in Eastry, near Sandwich, knows England are likely to have to call upon all that vast experience when they take on their Australian counterparts in the one-day internationals.

He added: “The last time the England over-70s team toured Australia, in 2018, they were beaten in all the

Read more on kentonline.co.uk