Shelley and Heard enter Hall of Fame

Peter Shelley and Dick Heard have been admitted to the OCCC Hall of Fame. They are the sixth and seventh OCs to be admitted.

Peter Shelley led the side between 1975 and 1981, and was responsible for rebuilding it into a vibrant club, recruiting many of the players who made it so successful under his successor, David Bugge. Always cheerful and extremely popular with both OCs and opponents, Peter always tried to ensure the game was played in the right spirit, leading by example with hardly ever a cross word.

He was also one of the finest wicketkeepers to be produced by the school, and was possibly the last in a long line of specialist keepers. He was probably at his best standing up to medium pacers – and art not seen often these days – and such was his anticipation and footwork that he rarely had cause to fling himself around to take balls. His batting was idiosyncratic – he was a genuine No. 11 even though he occasionally treated himself to a spot higher up the order – and his running between wickets a sight to behold.

Peter’s family's OCCC representation probably goes back further than any other. His grandfather played for the club at the turn of the century, and his father and uncle both turned out in the 1930s.


Dick Heard played in the same side as Peter’s father, and was one of the most natural sportsmen turned out by Cranleigh in the 1920s. He played rugby for the OCRFC in the opening match at TD, but it was at cricket he really excelled.

He was in the Cranleigh side which played at The Oval in 1928, and later that summer played for Surrey Young Cricketers. His leaving Cranleigh coincided with the Depression and in 1929 and 1930 he played cricket almost non-stop. In 1929 he scored 3000 runs in the season, including a hundred in 29 minutes for Wanderers at Leatherhead and 88 in 24 minutes at Gravesend. His bowling was also in demand – in 1931 he took eight wickets in an innings twice. He started playing for the OCCC in 1928, being the leading scorer between 1929 and 1935 and scoring 505 runs in 1931, a record which stood for over fifty years. He captained the side in 1935, but work commitments meant that he did not play after the war.

He continued to live in Thames Ditton until his death in 2002 at the age of 92.