PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust help founder member Jack Bond in his hour of need Jack Bond, the former Lancashire and Nottinghamshire captain, has become the latest former county cricketer to benefit from support from the Professional Cricketers’ Association’s Professional Cricketers’ Trust almost 48 years after he attended the inaugural meeting of the Association. The PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust, which is sponsored by Royal London, funded an emergency hip operation for Bond at Manchester’s Spire Hospital. Bond, 82, damaged his left hip when he fell in the shower and approached the PCA for assistance after he became frustrated at a long delay for treatment on the National Health Service and was in intolerable pain. ” The PCA have been very, very good in organising it. For a while I had been treated by the NHS but everything seemed to be taking too long and getting worse and worse,” he said. ” Some friends suggested that the PCA might be able to help and they have been marvellous. Within a week I was in hospital and waiting for the operation.” Bond spent Christmas in hospital after the three hour operation but he was discharged in time to celebrate New Year at home where he is now recuperating. When he attended the inaugural meeting of the PCA at Edgbaston in 1967, Bond could not have envisaged that he would one day benefit from the organisation’s members’ services. ” There were about 20 or 30 of us drawn from all the counties, mostly senior players, at the first meeting,” Bond said. ” Other organisations had unions and it was another voice for the players. That was the main thing, not always Lord’s and the MCC. It was another voice for the players and that’s what it was about. ” We didn’t always feel that our concerns and worries were being expressed as strongly as they should be. It was something we wanted to get established for the future. ” But we didn’t have anything like the Professional Cricketers’ Trust then at all. The only help you got as a player if you were sick was through the club. Sometimes clubs were a little backwards in coming forwards.” Bond captained Lancashire to three Gillette Cups and two Sunday League titles during his five years as Lancashire captain and re-joined them as manager after a season with Nottinghamshire in 1974. He scored more than 12,000 runs in 362 first-class matches at an average of 25.90 – ” I’m 82.5 now, it’s a bit better than my batting average,” he said – and 698 runs in 99 List A appearances. Bond was on the first-class umpires’ panel from 1988 to 1997 and has since retained a close involvement with Lancashire, his native county, working three days a week as a member of Matt Merchant’s groundstaff. Bond hopes to return to Old Trafford when he has recovered from his hip operation. ” I am hoping to go back to Old Trafford. We have all got to have an aim in life, that’s what keeps you going,” he said. ” I can’t desert them now we have been relegated can I? I have been there through thick and thin for years and years.” The Professional Cricketers’ Trust is part of the PCA’s commitment to helping current and former players and their dependants in times of hardship and upheaval or to readjust to the world beyond the game. The Fund also supports players and their dependants who might be in need of a helping hand with medical advice, a much-needed operation or those who require specialist advice, care or assistance. Clare Salmon, Brand Director, Royal London, said: ” We are delighted that our recently launched sponsorship of the Professional Cricketers’ Trust is already making a real difference to cricketers from the past, particularly in this case a founder member of the Fund. This sponsorship and the work of the Professional Cricketers’ Trust chime well with our brand ethos of community and helping people. We wish Jack Bond a speedy recovery.” Further information about the PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust can be found at:https://www.thepca.co.uk/benevolent_fund.html More information please contact Jason Ratcliffe 07768 558050 About Royal London: Royal London is the largest mutual life, pensions and investment company in the UK with Group funds under management of £ 78.4 billion. Group businesses serve around 5.3 million customers and employs 2,823 people (figures quoted are as at 30 September 2014). The Group is currently moving all of it UK Life, pension and investment businesses under a new version of the Royal London brand. The Group’s independent wrap platform will remain branded Ascentric. Royal London are valued partners of English cricket as title sponsors of both international 50 over cricket and the domestic 50 over trophy, The Royal London One-Day Cup (for both men and women). Royal London’s sponsorship of the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) Professional Cricketers’ Trust, represents an important development in the existing sponsorship and reflects, among other things, one of the core business functions of Royal London of helping those planning for their financial future. The sponsorship will extend through to the end of 2017. {{ak_sharing}}
