Farewell to former Price’s Fareham teacher and Gosport and Waterlooville cricketer Charlie Tuck

There they will say farewell to Charlie Tuck, one of the most prominent names on the Hampshire sporting scene for the past 50 years, who has died aged 81.

Charlie, a cricket enthusiast and long-retired PE teacher at Price’s School in Fareham, recently lost his battle with cancer, which he fought for more than a year.

A proud Yorkshireman, Charlie was educated at Doncaster Grammar School and later the Carnegie College for Sport in Leeds, where his prowess at cricket and rugby shone through.

A hard-hitting opening batsman, he played cricket for the Yorkshire Academy and Doncaster Town, while in the winter months he was Carnegie 1st XV's flanker.

His first teaching post was at St Peter's school in Doncaster, where former England football international Kevin Keegan was among his pupils. Charlie even got a passing mention in KK's autobiography!

How ironic that, when he moved to Fareham in 1968 to teach at Price's School, future Southampton striker Steve Moran was in his class - Moran played for Saints with Keegan at The Dell in the early 1980s.

Charlie was a hugely respected PE and maths teacher at Price's, as cricketer Simon Whitby recalled.

"If you were a games-mad teenager you soon realised you’d got lucky when a young Mr Tuck arrived - and transformed so many sporting lives.

"His reputation preceded him. A piece of Yorkshire grit determined to sharpen up us southern softies, with the use of a dreaded slipper – called Sebastian - if needed. Remember, this was 1968.

"Team Tuck, with the support of fellow teachers, grew sports success at Price’s in football, hockey, basketball and particularly cricket. Charlie had big ideas for that.

"He wanted Price’s to compete against the best opposition in both state and public schools. Players were selected for Hampshire Schools teams. His organisational skills took sides on tours of the Channel Islands and, astonishingly, the Caribbean.

"All this was driven by ambition, which some saw as Charlie’s ‘hard’ side. But this was a man who dispensed first aid to boys stricken by sea sickness in a Force 8 gale, who played the violin in the school orchestra and sang in musical productions with a strong bass voice. He was a tough nut certainly, but one evidently with a ‘soft’ centre.”

Charlie was a skilled sportsman too. A tidy lefty tennis player and a useful batsman and bowler for Gosport Borough and Waterlooville when time allowed.

Local cricket probably didn't see the best of Charlie due to his commitment to Price's until the school holidays. His involvement was limited to Sundays and competitive league cricket in Hampshire hadn't even begun.

Being a proud Tyke, Charlie was desperate that his son Richard should be eligible to play for the White Rose county, which until 1992 insisted that all its players must have been born within the historic county boundaries of Yorkshire.

So, undeterred, in early April 1970 and with Richard's birth imminent, Charlie and his wife Sue hopped in their family car and steamed the 270-odd miles up the A1 to Harrogate so that he would be eligible for Yorkshire. The story made the national papers.

Richard did play cricket and was a decent batter, not for Yorkshire but for Hampshire at U12 and U13 schools’ level.

When Sixth Form Colleges were introduced in the mid-1970s, Charlie became disillusioned with teaching and set up his own sports kit clothing company business (Allez), producing high quality cricket/rugby shirts and sweaters.

Not long after arriving in the south, Charlie became a founder member of the Hampshire Cricket Society and, more recently, swelled the ranks of the neighbouring Dorset Cricket Society.