The Club has gone into mourning following the shock news that Joey Benjamin passed away at his home in Outwood on Monday afternoon at the young age of 60.

Many boys in the club will have known Joey as a benevolent and friendly top class coach but perhaps not all will know that he played at the highest level in the game.

Born in St Kitts in the Caribbean, Joey moved to the UK with his family and they set up home in Birmingham. Joey’s first class county career started at Warwickshire in 1988 after he had shown his promise as a strong seam bowler with Minor Counties side Staffordshire. He moved to Surrey in 1992 and played there until 2000. He reached the pinnacle of his career in 1994 with his one Test Match for England against South Africa at the Oval, when he took 4 for 42 in the first innings. He was also in the Ashes tour party that Winter and played in two One Day Internationals against Australia. Unfortunately for him, England looked to the future with younger bowlers. He took 387 first class wickets at an average of 29.94 in an admirable professional cricket career.

He turned to coaching straightaway, with 2 years in the Surrey Performance area. At around this time, he also became the cricket professional at Reigate Grammar School and many local lads will have benefitted from his words of wisdom right up to 2019.

From 2002, he has also been a highly respected senior coach for the boys at the club and from 2019 also started working with the 1st team, where his standing grew further. He was a Level 3 coach and had supplemented his knowledge with a Neuro Linguistic Programming for Sport qualification.

During last year’s Covid restrictions, Joey ran 1 to 1 sessions during half term and then through the rest of the season, and many young players took advantage of the opportunity and were able to make good advances in their skills.

Always smart and healthy, Joey was a friend to many at the club and will be greatly missed.