The year was 1995. The occasion, the annual testimonial match at Lords where cricketer Clarence Parfitt was to be honoured for his contribution to the game.It was still several minutes before the start but one Bermudian man, probably in his late 20s, couldn't hide his excitement as he walked along the boundary with another man and was overheard to say: “I've heard a lot about this Clarence Parfitt, I can't wait to see him bowl.”Parfitt had come back from his home in Scotland to be a part of the occasion and at 51, though past his prime, was more than happy to play in what would be his last match on Bermuda soil.It didn't matter to that one fan that he wouldn't be seeing the Parfitt of old, he just wanted something to remember, to finally say he saw Bermuda's greatest-ever bowler in action…once.That is the kind of aura that still surrounds “Tuppence” Parfitt, who was back in Bermuda this week for a surprise party for his mother.Certainly his reputation precedes him. Those who witnessed his exploits in Cup Match in the 1960s and 70s won't forget them. Those who never saw him in action are just left to imagine the brilliance of the left-arm medium pacer who tormented local and overseas batsmen for years.On this the 30th anniversary of his final Cup Match when he lost as captain in the 1981 match at Wellington Oval, Parfitt returned to Bermuda for the party and to celebrate his own 67th birthday last Saturday. Unfortunately he wasn't able to stay long enough to witness next week's Cup Match, as the academy team he coaches in Scotland had a match yesterday that he didn't want to miss.When The Royal Gazette caught up with him earlier this week he was more than happy to sit down and talk about his exciting days as a player and now the coaching he does in Scotland even though he recently retired as Scotland's Regional Development Officer.“I retired just before I came here but I still coach one of the academies, The Caladonian Academy, so I will be doing part-time work and some clubs want me to come in to coach them,” said Parfitt.“I will still be involved and will try to find something to occupy my mind during the week.”After first going to Scotland in 1977 and then returning home briefly, Parfitt went back to Scotland permanently 27 years ago.Cricket is never far from his mind and he couldn't pass up the opportunity to take in most of the Eastern Counties match last weekend between Cleveland and Bailey's Bay at Sea Breeze Oval. Speaking honestly, he gives his assessment of the standard which, by general consensus, is much lower than what was produced decades ago.“What I saw on Saturday was very weak,” he said.“I was there from the beginning until late afternoon. The bowling was poor, bowling both sides of the wickets…wides and no balls. They don't apply themselves and haven't learned to bowl straight. Some of them try to bowl too fast, have no control and don't use simple techniques.“Plus the batters bat for a while and try to hit the ball out of the park. For what? You go away and play on big fields and the same balls you try to hit for six there you're out. We're not learning to bat sensibly.”Parfitt keeps up with what is going on in Bermuda cricket by reading the newspaper online everyday.“I hear people complaining about in 50 overs you can't build an innings, but 50 overs is 300 balls,” he said.“You can sit in and build an innings and you should be looking to score 260, 270, 280, sometimes even 300. But what are we being taught? The clubs are the leaders. If you don't develop it in the clubs and start in the beginning then you won't have it in the end. You should have more coaching courses and each club should have five or six coaches and a senior coach. How many other clubs have qualified coaches? When does Bermuda put on coaching courses? Everybody who coaches in Britain are qualified coaches and they do courses.”He added: “In Scotland I help to run through the winter months about 12 different courses for level one and level two coaches. I'm a tutor and I teach people to become a coach. That means I'm all over Scotland.“I know Bermuda had one here when guys came from England a couple of years back. Why aren't we sending level twos to England to become a level three coach. If we don't start developing correctly we are not going to have a future.”Parfitt was 33 when he went to Scotland to play professionally for Arbroath. It was the year after his record breaking achievements at Wellington Oval when he took Cup Match's only nine-wicket haul in the Somerset first innings (9-47 off 29.5 overs) and then added four more wickets in the second innings (4-44 off 21 overs) to also become the second bowler behind another St. Georgian left-hander, Alec (Cocky) Steede, to take 100 wickets in Cup Match. His last four wickets moved him to 103 wickets, three ahead of Steede, his cousin, who took 100 wickets in 24 Cup Matches.Parfitt took 12 Cup Matches to reach the milestone of 100 wickets in 11 years and went on to finish with 115 wickets after missing the 1977 and '79 matches before returning in '80 as vice captain to Neville Darrell and finishing his career in '81 as captain of a losing team at Wellington, the only defeat in his Cup Match career. By then Somerset had already reclaimed the cup.However, it was during the 1960s that St. George's were most dominant under Calvin (Bummy) Symonds' captaincy, winning eight times in nine years. Parfitt burst onto the scene in spectacular fashion in 1965, taking a match record 15 wickets for just 43 runs off 45.1 overs as a 21-year-old colt. Somerset's batsmen were still shell-shocked after Parfitt's eight for 23 broke Steede's eight for 17 haul in 1922.While modern-day fans ponder if two days are enough for a result in Cup Match, sometimes during the 60s the match barely lasted the whole two whole days.In the '65 match, Somerset were facing a ‘two-to-one' late on the first day after scoring 66 in the first innings and finding themselves 16-3 in the second innings at the close after St. George's scored 170 in their only innings.According to the newspaper article the match was over by 12.15pm on the second day after Somerset scored 72 in the second innings to lose by an innings and 32 runs.It turned out to be quite farcical as the Governor hadn't even arrived at the ground on the second day, forcing the teams to play an exhibition match to kill time.Same again in 1966 when Parfitt claimed eight wickets in the match as Somerset failed to reach 100 in either innings on their way to a crushing 10-wicket loss that almost came on the first day. The clubs agreed to end the first day's play an hour before the scheduled close to ensure the match continued into the second day. Still, it was an early victory for the East Enders.“Oliver Caisey (club official) came out and the club wanted us to stop the game but “Bummy” didn't want to, he wanted to end the game in case it rained the next day,” said Parfitt.“There was so much at stake for revenue and with people making plans.”And to show he wasn't just a good bowler against local batsmen, Parfitt took his game up another notch in October of 1966 when he decimated a touring team called The Cricketers Club of London, made up of several Test players, including Gary Sobers, Ken Barrington, Roy Marshall, Fred Titmus, Freddie Truman and Derek Underwood.Things were going according to plan as the visitors routed a Bermuda team, containing the likes of Sheridan Raynor, Lloyd James, Dennis Wainwright, Elliott Pitcher, Lee Raynor, ‘Bummy' Symonds and Eldon Raynor, for 75 in their first innings at Somerset.However, they didn't know much, if anything, about Clarence Parfitt who duly introduced himself with spectacular figures of six for 12 off 13.3 overs including the wicket of Sobers whom he bowled first ball. Lee Raynor played no small part, supporting Parfitt with four for 30, as Bermuda's only two bowlers used dismissed the visitors for 47.In the second innings Bermuda managed slightly better with the bat, scoring 143 and then dismissed the tourists for 140 to win by 31 runs. Parfitt took three for 30 off 18 overs and Joe Bailey four for 53.“It was supposed to be a two-day match,” recalled then Bermuda captain Symonds this week.“They won the toss and sent us in and skittled out for 75 runs, so Ken Barrington, the captain, said ‘oh, we can make mincemeat of these Village cricketers'.“I said ‘I'm going to show you what these Village cricketers are going to do to you'. We skittled them out for 42, with Clarence Parfitt taking six for 12. He gave Gary Sobers one ball, and he had Sobers in the second innings plumb lbw and (Eldon) Bristol, the umpire, didn't give it to him. Gary was walking, he was definitely out.“It was the greatest day for Bermuda at that time.”It was around that same time that Parfitt devastating left arm single-handedly destroyed Somerset Bridge in a league match at White Hill, taking 10 for 16 that day for St. George's. He still finished on the losing side that day.Parfitt paid Symonds the ultimate compliment by calling him “the best captain I played under”.“He was strict and didn't take any nonsense,” said the bowler. “He knew his players inside out.”The tourists played down the defeat, complaining afterwards about Bristol's “chronic umpiring”, of their own unfamiliarity with concrete wickets and the risk of injury…even of the distractions of the crowd!What they saw that weekend was Bermuda's top bowler at his best. Reportedly interest was made to take Parfitt to England for trials with a county team, an opportunity he said he didn't learn about until several years later. The opportunity was kept from him.“They wanted me to come for trials and Gary (Sobers) wanted me to go to the West Indies for trials,” he explained.“I was never told about it, but it was not only me but also Sheridan (Raynor), Lee (Raynor) and Dennis (Wainwright).“I found out there was truth in both of them (opportunities) when I went to Scotland. It is silly not to regret it because one of my aims was to be a professional cricketer when I was in school. But what's gone is gone, I don't look back and worry about it.”Parfitt was always a man who never doubted his own ability. But he was willing to put in the work, too, bowling for hours in the nets every day between shifts at his hotel job.“I used to work in the hotel and used to train every afternoon,” he explained.“I would knock off at about 2 o'clock and with “Cheesy” Foggo or “Bone” Steede we would ride out to the cricket club, put the mat down and I would bowl until 5 o'clock.“I would take a half hour break and when the other guys came to train I would bowl with them for another hour before I went back to work. I didn't bowl to a batsman, I bowled to the wicketkeeper and one stump.“You only get out of it what you put in. If you don't train you don't get results. I used the KISS system (keep it simple, stupid).“I kept it simple, found an area (on the wicket) that was beneficial to me and that's what I bowled in. I used to make a chalk mark on the wicket and would bowl in it and hit one stump and then just keep moving the stump.”Parfitt remembers a challenge from friend Leon “Spider” Blakeney on Cup Match eve that served to inspire his memorable debut performance.“The night before Cup Match I saw him at the bottom of Crawl Hill and as a Somerset fan he was giving me some stick,” Parfitt recalled.“I said ‘I'll tell you how many wickets I'm going to get' and he was like ‘yeah, sure'. I said I'm going to get 11 wickets over the next two days and I named the batters.“I said there are only two people that I would struggle against and that is Sheridan and Charlie Daulphin, and I got them both out, both innings. I got 11 other wickets and that's where my 15 wickets came from. He just shook his head and called me some names which I can't repeat. I studied everybody I played against.”One of the things Parfitt always had on his side was good wicketkeepers, starting with Irving (Coach) Creighton at Hamilton Parish, Barry DeCouto at Nationals where he played later in his career and Dennis Wainwright and Allan Douglas in the St. George's Cup Match team.“I was lucky I had good ‘keepers, even in Scotland where a young boy started at 15 as my ‘keeper. He was brilliant, good hands. Keepers help a good spinner, it's a specialist position.“We make the mistake sometimes in one-day cricket of not playing our best keeper but I want my best keeper.“Your best keeper can win you the match.”No doubt with his talent Parfitt would have made most Test teams during his peak, but he has no regrets about missing that opportunity.“It's hard to say because I'm Bermudian first,” said the bowler who was one of the first athletes inducted into the Bermuda Hall of fame in 2004.“I got a great honour playing for Scotland at my age which is my second home. I played for Scotland from about age 45, 46 and played 13 games over a three-year period. I was about 48 when I played at Lord's.”