22/07/2008 - Notts' ten-wicket haul - in 1956
If any Nottingham Forest players ever looked like getting too big for their boots, Brian Clough would recall the feat.
A dedicated cricket fan, the manager would point in the direction of Reds secretary Ken Smales. "See that man . ... he took ten wickets in an innings in the county championship . ...that's what I call success!"
The Notts spinner achieved the ten-wicket haul on Monday, June 11, 1956 against Gloucestershire at Stroud in the first county match to be played there. And in performing every bowler's dream he etched his name into the record books.
For the last Notts bowler to accomplish the feat had done so 111 years earlier when William Clark took all ten wickets against Leicestershire.
Ken's clean sweep happened in the same season that Surrey spinner Jim Laker dismissed ten Australians in the fourth Ashes Test and finished with match figures of 19 for 90.
Smales, whose father worked all his life as a spinning overlooker in the Yorkshire woollen industry, was born at Horsforth, near Leeds in 1927. During his time at Aireborough Grammar School. he was interested in most sports.
But Headingley, two miles from his home, was the focal point.
As a young boy, he has fleeting recollections of Don Bradman's celebrated 334 and recalled watching Harold Larwood bowl to Herbert Sutcliffe.
Interviewed in 1987 by Evening Post sports writer David Stapleton, he said: "I played football at school but gave all my attention to cricket later. And I was more of a batsman than a bowler."
The talented all-rounder went on to achieve his ambition of becoming a professional cricketer with Yorkshire, making his first team debut in 1948.
In his last game for his home county, the off spinner dismissed three great West Indian batsmen - Everton Weeks, Frank Worrall and Clyde Walcott - while playing for Yorkshire against the West Indian tourists at Bradford.
He joined Notts in 1951 and was capped in 1955.
He later recalled: "I chose to join Notts rather than Worcestershire but my career was stagnating until I had a stroke of luck.
"The great West Indian Learie Constantine came to a charity match at Bulwell in which I was playing. He took me to one side, offered advice on my method of delivery - and my career took a decided turn for the better.
"Within a year I had bagged those ten wickets in an innings against Gloucestershire. Luck was on my side, of course it was. For a start the wicket didn't suit seam bowler Arthur Jepson, and it was too slow for Bruce Dooland, that marvellous Australian leg spinner."
The back page headline on the Evening Post on Monday, June 11 was: All 10 wickets for Notts player after 111 years!
Smales finished with figures of ten for 66. Although mainly an off-break bowler, he was sometimes employed by Notts to open the attack, using a four-pace run up.
Having achieved another significant milestone, taking 100 wickets in a season, a severe muscle injury to his right shoulder caused Smales to retire from county cricket at the age of 31.
A new career was beckoning. He became Nottingham Forest's assistant secretary in September, 1958 and his first season finished on a high note with Forest lifting the FA Cup after beating Luton Town at Wembley.
Smales was appointed club secretary/treasurer in January, 1961 and was delighted to see big crowds flock back to the City Ground with a record attendance of 49,945 on October 28, 1967 for the visit of Manchester United.
When Clough breezed into the City Ground in January, 1975, Smales established an excellent relationship with him and Peter Taylor. Smales was at the secretarial helm at the time of the two European Cup triumphs and Clough presented him with a gold watch to mark 25 years' service with the club in 1985. He retired two years later and put a prodigious amount of research into producing a statistical record of the club, Forest: The First 125 Years, published in 1991.