And then there was one. In 1998 there will be only one frontline bowler left in county cricket from the season of 1980. That bowler is Gladstone Small, marking his run-up out alone now that Gordon Parsons is no longer wrestling for Leicestershire. Longevity has its place, and Gladstone's survival and achievement for Warwickshire are in themselves remarkable. He has taken 1171 wickets for the county, and although it may take a while before he starts frightening Eric Hollies' Warwickshire record of 2201, he does stand 12th in the list of the county's all-time wicket-takers, he has also taken 80 more wickets than any other Warwickshire bowler in what was, when Gladstone started, the John Player League, and now isn't. He has played in sides which have won two Championships, three NatWest Trophies, three Sunday Leagues, one Benson & Hedges Cup.

But that isn't really the point. Gladstone has been more than a willing workhorse of first-class cricket. He has played in 17 Tests and 53 one-day internationals. He has played in two World Cups, he has been Man of the Match in the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne, he has won at Sabina Park. There have been days when his bowling has looked a thing of ease and simplicity, days when David Boon has been his rabbit. But even that isn't the point. His career has been extraordinary not because of the years, but because of the distance he has travelled, through good times and bad times he has been left out of World Cup finals and overseas tours, spent long periods unselected or unfit, been so beset by no-balls that he has measured out his run with a piece of string.

And yet the traveller himself has remained steadfastly, even nobly, the same. Gladstone today is as ever he was, generous to people, friendly and patient without it looking like patience, extraordinary gentle and placid. If he sits in the White Swan at Harborne in Birmingham, scene of much mis-spent cricketer youth over the years, everyone will recognise Gladstone. Some will come across and shake him by the hand and talk. Gladstone seems to be as pleased to be someone now as he was when the world was new in 1980. Everyone, whether they know him or not, likes him, and that's not just because his is the only bowling impersonation in world cricket which doesn't need a run-up.

IT'S A LONG way from Gladstone's birthplace, St George, Barbados, six miles from Bridgetown, to Edgbaston. His father started the journey: like many Barbadians in the 1960s he left his family behind to come to England to find better work, in this case in the car industry. Gladstone was a one-year-old at the time, his mother spent a lot of time with his father in England, so he was brought up mainly by his grandparents. His grandfather, Clement, had worked as an overseer on the sugar plantation and, surprisingly, perhaps inexplicably, thought and said to a man who disagreed that Cowdrey and Graveney were better than Walcott and Weekes. The most striking photograph on the stairs of Gladstone's house is of him and his grandfather, aged 92, wearing his MCC touring sweater and cap. His grandfather may have talked an odd game, but the family all played, and by the age of 14 Gladstone was an offspinner good enough to be 12th man for his school, Combermere. Against club sides with boys by the name of Garner and Marshall.

In 1977 his father decided that the family should all move to England. Not surprisingly this didn't really appeal to Gladstone. He didn't like the cold or the place and his new school, Moseley, played only two cricket matches a year. And yet, within 18 months, he passed from being a homesick 15-year-old non-playing offspinner to being a professional fast bowler. In one of the school's two games, against King Edward's of Camp Hill, a teacher from the opposition identified his talent as a batsman and offspinner. That school's oldboys team gave him cricket and Bob Evans, captain of the club's 2nd XI and one day to be chairman of Warwickshire, gave him lifts in his Rolls-Royce.

Warwickshire Schools and the Young Amateurs showed an interest, but Gladstone only became a fast bowler because it rained. A trial was moved into the indoor school at Edgbaston. Spin bowling on the shiny green lino of the indoor school was a dying and certainly a dangerous art. The team's opening bowler was notoriously unreliable, so Gladstone bowled fast instead. Robin Dyer, the captain and another future Warwickshire player, noticed the difference and convinced a sceptical and antique management to pick him. Thus died the offspinner, but for Gladstone it was a beginning: `At that point cricket was my saviour. I was very downhearted at the time, and I don't know how I would have coped in England without it.'

If cricket saved Gladstone in 1978, by 1980 Warwickshire hoped that he might save them. He didn't play much in the Championship, but, with 25 wickets, he was a central figure in the county's surprise success in the Sunday League. He was an unlikely saviour, with tiny round glasses – or not, if he had lost them – and no neck. Yet Bob Willis, the new captain, and David Brown, their new manager, could see the jewel, even though it came in a rather odd box. Their love and care for Gladstone was touching to behold: they even took off his boots and organised the temperature of his post-match bath.

Their belief was confirmed by events. In the next six years, Gladstone took 350 wickets. There were bad days, not least when Bill Alley gleefully no-balled him 12 times in an over against Middlesex at Coventry. But there were good days, too, when the pieces fitted together and Gladstone got good players out easily. You could even hear the good days from mid-off: when his heels clicked together in his run-up, all would be well. It was just a shame that he couldn't choose to make his heels click. Gladstone himself admits that he may have lacked edge: `I got top-order players out, but I wasn't always bothered with the tail, and you could say that I decided too easily that it was not going to be my day.'

In these years Warwickshire were, at best, a poor side. In eight years from 1980 they were bottom of the Championship twice, 15th twice and in the top half only once. Andy Lloyd, a player throughout these years and later the captain, thinks that this weakness did Gladstone no good: `He was the only good bowler we had, the only bowler for whom the opposition had any respect. When Viv Richards got 322 at Taunton in 1985, he played Gladstone properly and murdered everyone else.'

And yet there were times when Gladstone had to put up with more than his county's mediocrity. There were grounds where long leg was not a great place to be black and in possession of two fused vertebrae at the top of the spine. Some Warwickshire players remember unpleasant moments but Gladstone, amazingly, doesn't seem bothered. `I never worried about my neck. I was born that way: my nickname in Barbados was Shoulders. It even helped me bowl better because it kept my head steady in delivery. And if there was abuse, I just thought that it was because I was on the other side. They abused Anton Ferreira for being a South African and Paul Smith for dyeing his hair blond. It all seemed the same to me.'

BY THE TIME Gladstone was selected to play Test cricket in 1986, England weren't much better than Warwickshire. They were in the process of losing three Test series in a row, to West Indies (5–0), India (2–0) and New Zealand (1–0): from blackwash to sheep-dip. England's bowling selection at the time, and often hereafter, was apparently being done not only out of a hat, but a very large one. When Gladstone made his debut in the Second Test at Trent Bridge, the seam bowlers were himself, Greg Thomas and Derek Pringle. In the previous match they had been Graham Dilley. Neil Foster and Neal Radford. Mike Gatting, captain at the time, wrote that it was impossible to be a team with so many moving parts, and yet he also wrote that Gladstone took to Test cricket `like a duck to water'. Gladstone says that this wasn't that surprising: `I was lucky it was New Zealand: I knew Martin Crowe, and I'd already bowled a lot at their good players in county cricket. Anyway, I knew I wasn't worse than a lot of players who had been picked before me.'

England lost that Test by eight wickets, but Gladstone was, at least in the eyes of Mike Gatting, a Test bowler. He was selected to tour Australia in 1986–87 with the team which left as no-hopers and returned the most successful touring side in history, winning the Test series, the World Series Cup, and the one-day Perth Challenge. The itinerary, spanning 44,000 miles and 35 flights, was a disaster, but the leadership was not: ` Mike Gatting was an outstanding captain on that trip because he allowed the players to be themselves and to be part of the decision-making process.'

Gladstone himself, although not picked for the first three Tests, was, according to Wisden, the best bowler on the trip, taking 33 first-class wickets at 19 and 12 in the Tests at 15. He felt he belonged. `I always found it easier to play on tour with a limited number of players. In England, with so many possible choices, every match seemed like a trial.' It may not be coincidence that he played only seven of his 17 Tests in England. But Australia also felt secure. He had already spent two seasons playing club cricket in Melbourne, and in 1985–86 had played for South Australia, taking 39 wickets in the Sheffield Shield. `Joel Garner had played for them in the previous two years, and then recommended me. It was a brave thing to do, since I hadn't by then played for England. But I got to play on all the Test grounds, and I got good players out on the Adelaide Oval.'

Thus, it came to pass at Melbourne on Boxing Day that Gladstone and Ian Botham bowled Australia out. Botham was barely fit with a rib injury, and Gladstone wasn't even expecting to play: `I only got picked at 10.25 when Graham Dilley failed a fitness test, and even then they could have picked Neil Foster. I bowled a bad first over, they were throwing fruit from Bay 13, so things didn't look too promising. Then a skyer came towards me off Ian Botham at long leg and I managed to keep out of Jack Richards's way so he could catch it. That got the whole thing going, and anyway, it was a green wicket.'

At this point, after another good game at Sydney, Gladstone could have become a regular Test player. But in 1987 he had leg problems and played in only two of Warwickshire's first 15 matches. In fact, in the next five series and 20 Tests, he played only twice – even in 1988, when he took 75 wickets at 18, nine of them in his only Test of the summer against West Indies.

Gooch recalls in his book Captaincy the difficulty of the call telling Gladstone he was not going to India in 1988–89. At least they had the decency to cancel the tour. Gladstone admits that his own fitness and fears about his fitness didn't help England to pick him: `I was never the strongest of people and I did get injured, but I don't think it was just me. I don't know how Trueman and the rest bowled the overs they did, but I found the pace of county cricket, with its over rates, very hard. It was exhausting, mentally and physically, going back and forth between county and Test cricket, and often there wasn't much break between tours and the new season.' None of this is said with self-pity or blame of others, but the careers of Gough and Cork and Fraser confirm that the phrase `English fast bowler' has become a contradiction in terms.

When Gladstone was fit, he, like every England seam bowler, had to run in to bowl looking over his shoulder. If West Indies consumed English batsmen, then the Australians in 1989 did the same for the English seam bowlers: 12 were served up in the series. At least Gladstone was the last of them to play, and so survived to go on the tour of West Indies under Gooch.

That team so nearly repeated the unexpected greatness of 1986–87. With the selection of Devon Malcolm for that tour, it was proclaimed that England would fight fire with fire. Well, up to a point. In fact, with Fraser, Small and David Capel they fought fire with the more prosaic weapon of the `corridor of uncertainty'– bowling outside the off stump until the opposition got bored. This, allied to Gooch's batting, worked until the captain was injured at Port-of-Spain.

England won at Sabina Park for the first time in 36 years. It was their first victory over West Indies anywhere for 16 years. In Guyana, it only rained. At Port-of-Spain they had all day to score 171 to win, until rain intervened. While Desmond Haynes had to squander time to secure a draw, Gooch sat padded up, but unable to bat. Perhaps if Haynes had known that Small was really the next man in, he might have bowled a few more overs. The last two Tests were lost, but at least in the fourth at Bridgetown Gladstone came home in triumph.

He took eight wickets in the match, including Desmond Haynes twice. In 1974 he had walked the six miles to the Kensington Oval and climbed in to watch Lawrence Rowe score 302 against England, and even if his grandfather could not be there, many of Small's friends and relations were. He remembers that the crowd could not have been better to him: `There was no hostility. They told me that I would get a lot of licks, but in the Kensington stand, they just love the game and the music and the rum. I loved it, and just tried to show them what I could do.'

Gladstone played seven more times for England, and went to the World Cup in 1992. His patience may have been infinite, but he can remember crying at being left out of the final by Gooch after bowling well in the semi. It may be that his apparent gentleness did not suit the stern Gooch regime.

BY THEN, at least, Warwickshire was rising from its ancient slumber. Gladstone believes that Andy Lloyd's leadership began things in 1988. `Andy was a gambler, and he taught us to take some risks, to play with greater purpose.' Lloyd himself thinks he owes some of the credit to Small. `The first time I took a big risk as captain was against Notts. I was batting and made a deal to set them 220 in over 50 overs. When I came off, Gladstone and Norman Gifford thought I'd gone mad, and wouldn't talk to the insane. Then Gladstone took 7 for 15 and we won by a mile.'

This new purpose was then taken on by Bob Woolmer. Gladstone thinks he is the best coach he knows: `He made players think about their games, he treated them as individuals, and involved them in decisions. You can talk about team spirit all you like, but it happens when each individual knows what his role is.' When this was added to Dermot Reeve's refusal to fear failure and to the talent of Donald and Lara, it is no surprise that Warwickshire have become the most successful side of the 1990s.

These days, Gladstone mainly plays in one-day games. Andy Lloyd thinks that Gladstone can't bowl more than 12 overs any more, but the man himself is not so sure, and Brian Lara may give him a chance to find out. But Lloyd thinks that his presence is enough in itself: `For years Gladstone has been the catalyst in the Warwickshire dressing-room. He fixes things, he keeps the whole thing stable.'

Gladstone has seen factions at Warwickshire: when he started there were still two home dressing-rooms, the capped and the uncapped. In 1987 he had to live through terrible strife at Warwickshire between his lift-giver, Bob Evans, and his bath-runners, Willis and Brown. But he never got involved. He says that on occasions he repeated the ideas of players to Dermot Reeve, when he was trying to run everything, but Gladstone could never be a centre for dissent.

He has seen the best of times and the worst of times, but hasn't let either of them get to him, he was bowled and bowled, often without support and he always delivered: even when he disagreed with Andy Lloyd's declaration, he still won the game.

Lois, Gladstone's Australian wife, finds his patience remarkable. `He loathes confrontation of any kind. He is wonderfully open to strangers, but he is so self-contained that he reveals little of himself.' You get the feeling that she wishes that he had stood up for himself more, and been more aggressive, more willing to react to injustice. Perhaps he might have played more for England, but he might not have lasted so long, or been so liked in the White Swan.

But even Gladstone Small's career must end. By 2000 he will have finished a degree in Business Administration. It would be strange if there were not some role to be found in the game for his generosity of spirit. But perhaps the end is not yet nigh. In South Africa this winter, he was playing in the World Masters, where old cricketers prove to satellite TV audiences that fielding gives up first, then bowling, then batting. Jimmy Cook was making this clear by destroying Gladstone and several other ex-Test quick bowlers. The captain, Joel Garner, once again an unlikely fairy godmother, remembered school cricket in Barbados and asked Gladstone to bowl offspin. He did, for the first time in 20 years, and dismissed Cook. Perhaps Gladstone has been wasting his life all these years and Eric Hollies' record is not safe after all.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd