All-rounder

John Arlott called him, 'the most variously gifted Englishman of any age,' and Arlott, conjuring his musty magic from an old typewriter set next a glass of something good and red, was probably right. The sheer unlikeliness of CB Fry continues to astonish, more than half a century after his death.

Had he confined himself to cricket, 30,000 runs at 50.22 in an era when a decent average was 30, plus the famous six consecutive hundreds would have been enough to cement the legend. Yet they were simply a sidebar to the rest of his life, which reads like it was invented by Monty Python. He equalled the world long jump record, appeared in the 1902 FA Cup Final, played rugby for the Barbarians, modelled, stood as an MP, became an advisor to the League of Nations [where he may or may not have been offered the throne of Albania], authored much of Ranjitsinhji's Jubilee Book Of Cricket, launched and edited two magazines, invented the concept of the sporting star's newspaper column, was the first person on This Is Your Life, taught at Charterhouse and became a captain in the navy reserve. His party trick was to jump backwards onto a mantlepiece from a standing position.

He engaged in a bizarre marriage, probably for money, to a terrifying woman named Beatrice who was 10 years older than him and who'd had a lover called Charles Hoare since the age of 15. Mental illness shadowed his gifts. He first broke down at university, but the real horrors descended later in life, when he fell in thrall to Hitler [and tried to persuade von Ribbontrop that Germany would produce 'a blond Grace' should the Reich take up cricket], developed an irrational fear of Indians [despite his lifelong friendship with Ranji], dressed eccentrically, suffered paranoid episodes and was once found running naked on Brighton beach.

It was an epic life with a great sad sweep to it, and it's nice to see that the good people at Philosophy Football have diversified into real sport and produced an excellent Fry t-shirt. Worth checking out if that's your thing. Now c'mon boys, how about a WG one? You know you want to...