Born in Worksop on 17 June 1903, John Bernard Hall was educated at Bloxham and played for Worksop in the Bassetlaw league from 1920 to 1939.
A right-hand bat and medium-pace bowler, he made his First-Class debut for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan in 1935 and played five games in all. His second game came four years after his first, the interim being mainly taken up with appearing regularly for Sir Julien Cahn’s XI, including a match in Ceylon (as the country was then called) in March 1937. This was one of two First-Class matches that he played for Cahn’s XI, the other being v Lancashire at West Bridgford two years earlier. Hall took 166 wickets, at an average of 20.77, for Sir Julien’s team; his best all-round performance came against Lancashire in September 1935 when he scored 24, his joint best First-Class knock, and took eight wickets in the match, including career-best figures of 6-75 in Lancs second innings.
If he had a four-year gap between his first two Notts appearances, the next break was to be longer, and far more dramatic. John Hall was in the Notts XI that played Worcestershire at the end of August 1939 – the last match to be played before the outbreak of WWII brought Championship cricket to a halt.
He did not appear again until 1946, when he played three games for Nottinghamshire; his final First-Class match was against Middlesex at Trent Bridge in June that year. In all First-Class cricket he scored 114 runs at 9.50, with a top score of 24, the second time for Notts v Middlesex. He took 21 First-Class wickets at 24.57.
John Hall had played for Notts Seconds in the Minor Counties Championship as far back as 1924 and 1926 and was to re-appear for them 1947 and 1948 – his final game for any Notts team being in June that year v Yorkshire Seconds at Hull.
John Bernard Hall died in Retford on 27 May 1979.
July 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 358