Date-stamped : 31 May96 - 10:16 30 May 1996 Battling Briers forced to retire through injury By Christopher Martin-Jenkins NIGEL BRIERS, captain of Leicestershire from 1990 until last season and the longest-serving county cricketer of them all, will announce his retirement this morning to take up the post as master-in-charge of cricket at Marlborough College. A knee injury has finally persuaded this stoical opening batsman and exemplary professional to develop his second career as a teacher after a quarter of a century in the game. Briers is `only` 41 but he out-does all the other venerable old professionals still playing. He first played for Leicestershire as a 16-year-old in 1971, the youngest to play for the county. Graham Gooch and John Emburey made their first appearances two years later, in 1973; Mike Gatting did not start until 1977. Goochie, Gatt and Knuckle, or Embers, have all had, or are hav- ing, two benefits. `Kudu` Briers has had only one, and a mod- est one, too, by comparison, but then he was never seriously considered as an England player, despite scoring 1,000 runs in 11 seasons, 31 first-class hundreds, averaging 33 and fielding all his career as he batted, with pride and passion. Of course he also played for a modest county, albeit one transformed during his years at Grace Road. Leicestershire have won the championship, the NatWest, the Sunday League twice and the Benson and Hedges three times in the years he has been at the club. They had won not a single trophy before Ray Illingworth led them to their first success at Lord`s in 1972, when the 17-year-old Briers, batting at No 3, had to be content with a single game against Oxford. It took him until 1981 to win a county cap from a thrifty committee, but no contemporary player has worn his cap with a greater sense of self-esteem. Discipline, the will to win and enjoyment were his watchwords as a player and a captain and he will expect the same when he moves to Marlborough in September, combining his duties in overall charge of cricket with PE teaching and a role as the school`s development officer. Despite the guidance of the former Lancashire bowler Bob Ratcliffe, who will continue as the cricket professional, Marlborough have had several lean cricketing years, an omission which the master, the former Oxford rugby Blue, Ed Gould, clearly intends to repair. Briers qualified as a teacher of PE at Borough Road College and has taught at Ludgrove in the winter since 1979. His two sons are at the school and seem to be better cricketers than their former and present fellow scholars, Prince William and Prince Harry: last week Andrew Briers, 9, scored 147 not out for the under-11s on the same day his brother Michael, 13, took five wickets for the first XI. Briers Snr had been greatly looking forward to playing for Leicestershire this season under James Whitaker but injured his knee in the pre-season tour and was told that it would be three months before he would be fit. The success of younger players and what he calls "a wonderful opportunity which might not come again" have helped this decision. It will be regretted in Leicester but warmly welcomed in Wiltshire. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http.//www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by Shash (shs2@*.cwru.edu)