On the domestic front, Essex won their first County Championship title, now sponsored by Schweppes, in 1979. Appropriately their success was based on an effervescent spirit. The team was bursting with characters, from the mischievous Scot Brian ‘Lager’ Hardie, an uncomplicated opening bat and masochistic short leg, through the lugubrious Gooch and the debonair South African Kenny McEwan to the chirpy left-arm swinger J. K. Lever and the mad antics of the spinners David Acfield and Ray East.
