HE was given the supreme accolade by the distinguished cricket writer and commentator John Arlott who lauded him as ‘perhaps the most remarkable all-rounder the game has ever known’.

George Brown not only opened the batting and kept wicket for England against their eternal foes Australia; figured in three record partnerships, scoring more than 23,000 runs for his beloved Hampshire, but took more than 600 wickets and as a silly-mid-off he was unsurpassed by holding nearly 500 catches.

A giant of a man and immensely strong – with his powerful hands he could tear a pack of cards in two – he left a mark on the game that only a great cricketer can.

However, it was in less-than-harmonious circumstances that Brown featured in headline news in January, 1931, when he gave evidence at a trial at Hampshire Quarter Sessions as the victim of a family battle that left him confined to bed, nursing a catalogue of injuries that included extensive bruising to the throat and abdomen. He had also sustained three scratch marks above the left eye, probably inflicted by fingernails, as well as cuts almost certainly caused by a kick or kicks.

“The eye injury caused by the pressure on the throat might affect the quickness with which he has to work as a professional cricketer,” Dr Oscar Misquith reflected on the severity of its impact he determined from an examination at his North Stoneham home. “Also his leg injury might have turned into a condition where he might not be able to earn his living as a cricketer.”

Prosecutor Blake Odgers asked him: “Can you conceive of these injuries being received in a fair fight?” to which the doctor emphatically replied: “No, never.”

Listening intently in the dock were four member of the Eames family – three men and a woman – the youngest being Brown’s son-in-law, who were charged with assault and wounding.

The fracas emanated after Brown’s daughter Stella had obtained a separation order from her husband, 21-year-old Fred Eames, and through solicitors it was agreed the cricketer would collect her furniture from their home in Chandler’s Ford with a lorry and a driver.

But when it was pointed out that certain items were missing, Eames allegedly swore at his wife. Brown asked him to be civil, only for Eames to shout: “If you want to fight, come out here,” pointing to an adjacent orchard. Brown removed his cost and waistcoat and the brawl began.

“When the fight started, who did the attacking?” Odgers inquired.

“He did,” insisted Brown who claimed that as bystanders saw he was getting the better of the fight, they encouraged Eames “to get into me. That is right, nipper. Finish him”.

Brown told the court: “When he noticed I was not following him up, he rushed at me blindly and kicked me severely on the left shin. He also kicked me several times in the stomach. The effect was terrible. I appealed to him to fight clean and I still tried to fight him as he kicked me.

“Then he got away from me. Ducking his head and covering his face with an arm, he came at me with his head, just like a goat. His head caught me in the windpipe and down I went with him on top of me. I was practically a loose man then.”

The prosecutor asked what happened when he lay on the ground.

Brown recalled: “He clawed at my face and tore my ear. He had his knees on my stomach. I pleaded with him to let me get up and he would not. Somebody managed to get him off and I got up.”

As they struggled, he said Eames’ mother clawed him on his back, and while he lay on the ground, she leaned over him, raised her arm and struck him below the eye with something hard but he did not know what the object was.

“The only thing I could do was to close my eyes and take it.”

Someone then pulled him off before his son arrived and he collapsed. He was taken home and put to bed, saying it had taken him some six weeks to recover from his injuries, except for a feeling behind his eyes.

Brown added that he was “more or less” on good terms with his son-in-law at the time and was not looking for a fight.

“That was the last thing I wanted. Give me a cricket bat and I’ll go out and play cricket.”

But Seymour Collins, defending, reminded him he had been a boxer.

“I’ve had the gloves on once or twice,” he admitted. “It is a fine exercise.”

But Eames was not a good boxer, Collins suggested.

“No,” he concurred.”

All four defendants were arrested by warrant and interviewed at the police station.

Eames said it had been “a fair fight” and his mother, 48, said she had only intervened when she saw Brown of top of her son and pulled him off.

Her husband, 58-year-old Albert insisted: “It was a fair fight, man to man. I do not know why they want to cause all this trouble.”

Their other son, also called Albert, 22, admitted being present but did nothing.

Giving evidence, Arthur Eames, denied being offensive to his wife “I believe in respecting my wife and not swearing at her,” the bricklayer said. “We were talking about getting back together which we have.”

Accusing Brown of being the instigator, he claimed he was pushed back. “He said: ‘I have been waiting to give you something for a long time. Come over here.’ He is always pig-headed and sarcastic. You cannot talk to him. He became excited and challenged me to fight. He went into the field and dealt me three blows which I returned.”

Denying he had kicked him, Eames added: “I did not wish to fight. It is not my motto.”

He denied his mother had taken an active part in the fight. “She was saying ‘stop it, you are choking him.’ I did not see my mother do anything to him.”

Eames said the fight lasted a further three minutes, ending when he struck Brown on the left jaw with his right hand and he collapsed.

Asked by Collins how he could account for his father-in-law’s injuries, he replied: “The only suggestion I can make is that through Mr Head getting excited and kicking he might have got them from Mr Head who was wearing heavy boots at the time.”

Collins then asked: “Who was Mr Head kicking at?”

“Me I suppose, since he was a friend of Mr Brown and not of mine.”

His father denied getting involved in the fight. He had been merely an onlooker, although he admitted shouting ‘Get on with the fight’ when they were in a clinch.

His wife said she heard Brown’s daughter shout that he was choking her son.

“There was a rough and tumble and he was going black in the face with choking. Brown is lucky not to be on a charge of manslaughter,” describing how she tried to pull his hand away from her son’s throat and in the process might have caught him on the face with her elbow.

Eames Junior said Head had rushed in but he was unsure whether his kicks struck his brother or Brown.

“I did not see any kicking between them, other wise I would have stopped the fight. I did not hear any shouting while the fight was on. When it had finished, I told him Brown had had enough.”

However, the jury believed the prosecution’s evidence and convicted all four. Arthur Eames was jailed for one month with hard labour but the remainder were bound over.