Obituary: Edward Charles Greensmith (Lord Ted)

By ARNOLD PICKMERE

Cricket lover. Died of cancer aged 68.

Lord Ted, as he was known for years to Eden Park cricket crowds and to cricketers, liked to broadcast his opinions, without artificial aids, from the terraces end of the ground. He could usually be heard throughout the stadium.

Ken Matthews, who knew him for many years, says that when in full voice Ted would never barrack a player down on his luck, or a marginal player.

"It was usually the mighty or pompous who copped the full verbal."

Lord Ted (probably an adaptation from fellow Englishman and England captain "Lord Ted" Dexter) usually had a pertinent and often hilarious point to make.

Auckland Cricket chief executive officer Lindsay Crocker says Lord Ted was one of the most recognised figures in the Grafton Cricket Club and at Eden Park.

"I remember in the 1970s Lord Ted became famous for yelling out advice to players ... everyone used to yell at him to sit down when he stood up."

Lord Ted became part of the entertainment, unpaid in those days. His friends - and he had many - say that as the contents of Ted's chillybin dropped his Derbyshire accent became broader and broader, which in the latter stages of an afternoon fortunately meant that no one, including the players, could understand him.

Cricket was the great love of Ted's life, playing and watching. Even when he regularly visited the organic production unit at Unitec's hortecology sanctuary, another of his interests, he would arrive resplendent in pink tracksuit pants, a cricket jumper over a bright tropical shirt and a fashionable cravat round his neck.

And a pocket radio, so he could keep up with the cricket.

They planted a rewarewa tree there this week in memory of a man who loved life and nature.

Describing himself as an insurance consultant, Ted had no family in New Zealand. He was born in Little Eaton in Derbyshire, not far from Nottingham Castle and Sherwood Forest. His father was a bus driver.

When he left school Ted worked in the mines tending pit ponies, then joined the British Army. He ended up in the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australians before reaching New Zealand in the mid-1960s.

Matthews says Ted's cricket knowledge was encyclopaedic and he could readily recall minute details of the great and the obscure who had played in the past century and a half.

Grafton's chairman Stewart Wilson says Lord Ted followed the Grafton premier team every weekend for 20 years. He encouraged and taught the New Zealand medium pacer Willie Watson and the Horne brothers, never being short of advice like "get your left arm up higher" and "play straight".

And he was always ready to discuss the finer points of the game with internationals such as Martin Crowe and Sir Richard Hadlee when their paths crossed. Matthews remembers that some years ago when Ted was being vocal about an umpire's decision he suddenly stopped, squinted, borrowed a pair of binoculars and said: "My God, that's Billy Bowden."

As a lad Billy had sat with Ted, Danny Morrison and others on the terraces and as such was one of Ted's lads.

Lord Ted's most unusual off-field incident occurred in 1990, not at Eden Park but at the Auckland City flats where he lived in Howe St. It caused him to be convicted of possessing an offensive weapon - a cricket bat.

It began as a neighbours' dispute in which he objected to the smoke from a barbecue two floors down. Ted's version was that when it was not put out he politely asked the two women with whom he was arguing to step aside while he threw several buckets of water at the barbecue.

Unfortunately the water also hit the women. When they approached him, so Ted maintained, the bat he had been cleaning never left his side. The judge preferred the evidence that showed his stance with the bat was "quite violently confrontational".

Lord Ted received a fine and a suspended sentence ... but the judge also ordered that his bat be returned to him.