News has reached us that Clive Huggins, a regular at the Chiang Mai Sixes, had died recently and we grateful to Paul Lack for providing this obituary of his longtime friend.
Clive sadly passed away on Saturday 16th October after several months battling a stroke. He was a stalwart of Leatherhead CC, XL CC, RICS CC, Surrey Vagrants and Ashwell Crusaders. Having completed over 100 cricket tours Clive particularly treasured his annual participation at the Chiang Mai Sixes.
As Chartered Surveyors we met on the inaugural RICS tour to Sri Lanka. Subsequent cricket tours to Kenya, Zimbabwe, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean followed with an appearance in the Australian alternative Ashes final at Manly Oval.
Sixess tournaments also became a regular feature of his winter including winning the indoor European final in Austria and the Jersey Fort Regent competition. Sarasota in Florida (Richie Benaud was the President) featured for 16 winters which then overlapped for over a decade with the Surrey Vagrants’ visits to Chiang Mai.
Clive was a versatile all-rounder who initially was an obdurate opener (Nudger was his nickname) and a swing bowler. In his latter years he reverted to keeping wicket, leg-spin with a Brearley like majesty as Captain and tour organiser. He once took 6 wickets in a Tobago tour match to enable us to win by 5 runs as part of a Surrey and Warwickshire pros team skippered by David Ward.
At the Philadelphia Cricket Festival we played for the Cayman Islands Greenies with Sir Garfield Sobers and Clive hitting it off during the tournament. The photograph shows two great allrounders sharing cricket experiences.
Another great highlight for him was being part of our surveyors’ cricket team that played at the Oval and on the main square at Lord’s. We will all sorely miss Clive and he will be in our thoughts on the next tour when everyone joins together once more at the Gymkhana Club in Chiang Mai.
RIP Clive
Another close friend of Clive Steve Naylor has also shared his memories
Clive Huggins AKA the Silver Fox
Clive was one of life’s true gentlemen, the silver fox will be sadly missed by not only all his close friends and family but also by his many cricketing friends from around the world, as you well know Clive loved a cricket tour… one of his greatest attributes was finding and introducing new players and friends to his beloved cricketing world!
Clive introduced Jerry, myself and many others to the sixes world, which we all fell in love with! These tournaments, the Trophies, the lifelong friends and the great memories simply would not have been possible without the selfless and tireless hours Clive put into organising these trips. Sarasota, Phuket, Hua Hin to name but a few! Not only did Clive organise these trips successfully, he managed to captain us successfully to many victories and tournament wins which he took great pride in.
Jerry and I are would love to rally the troops and put together a Clive Huggins team to celebrate and Honour Clive, hopefully at the next Chiang Mai sixes (if space is still available).