By CONRAD SUTCLIFFE
A private handover between outgoing Devon CCC president Roger Moylan-Jones and successor Jack Davey will have to take place due to the indefinite postponement of the county club’s annual meeting.
The handover was due to take place at the club’s annual meeting in Exeter next Thursday (March 26). Devon officials decided to postpone the meeting due to the current corona virus shutdown.
Moylan-Jones, who will be 80 this year, succeeded the late Derek Cole as county chairman in 1995 after retiring from the Royal Navy. He assumed the presidential role in 2011 following the death of David Shepherd.
Shepherd, the former Gloucestershire and Devon cricketer who went on to become a celebrated Test match umpire, had been a team-mate of Moylan-Jones in the Devon Colts side of the late 1950s.
While Shepherd was pursing a career in First Class cricket, Moylan-Jones was rising through the Naval ranks midshipman at Dartmouth to rear admiral by the time he retired.
Cricket-wise he played for Paignton, Penzance, United Services Portsmouth at club level and the Navy and the Combined Services, whom he captained from 1978-84.
Moylan-Jones Devon career as a player stretched from 1959-1975. He batted in the top half of the order and his top score was the unbeaten century made against Somerset II at Exeter in 1972.
Davey, five years younger than the man he is replacing, graduated from Minor Counties cricket with Devon to the First Class game with Gloucestershire.
Davey played for Milton Abbot and Tavistock in his youth before breaking into the Devon bowling attack.
Word got around the counties there was a lively young left-armer down in Devon and Worcestershire had a look at Davey before Gloucestershire moved in for him.
Davey played more than 300 1stXI games for Gloucestershire between 1966-1978, when injury forced him into a premature retirement and a new career in the licensed trade.
He ended his career playing league cricket for Exmouth in the team that won the Devon League Premier title in 1986.
