Denis and Leslie, the world renowned ‘Compton Boys’, were the twin stars of the English sporting firmament who helped to illuminate the middle of the last century. Hailing from Hendon, the ground in which Herbert Chapman’s earthly remains rest eternally, the brothers, whose sporting Corinthian ethos and decency, together with no little ability, and a joie de vivre at odds with the times, helped to lift the spirits of a battered and tired war-torn nation: twin icons of a golden age: football and cricket; Arsenal and Middlesex; Highbury and Lords’. Denis was the original boy’s own hero with film star good looks; the Brylcreem boy who was described at a dinner given to mark his retirement from professional sport as ‘a great and modest sportsman’. While he briefly graced Arsenal’s history with a rare intensity, winning the title in 1948 and the FA Cup in 1950 as a clever, spontaneous, and irrepressible winger, it is perhaps his brother, Leslie, whose star shone the brighter and longer over Highbury.

Although all sports were a fitting stage for Denis to demonstrate his lightly worn virtuosity and accomplishment - he was a fine golfer too - cricket was his especial arena. His career predates me by some distance, but for my father, who shared his first name, Denis was a player to marvel at. Almost the first thing I learnt about cricket history was Denis’s glorious summer of 1947. He accumulated just short of 4,000 runs, and scored 18 centuries with his cavalier batting in a rare summer of unstinting sunshine; both achievements remain records for one season and will surely never be beaten. In writing of ‘Compton’s Summer’, Sir Neville Cardus, eulogised: “the sight of Compton in full sail ... each stroke a flick of delight, a propulsion of happy, sane, healthy life”; and John Arlott, added: “To close the eyes is to see again that easy, happy figure at the wicket, pushing an unruly forelock out of the eye…and playing off the wrong foot a stroke which passes deep-point like a bullet”.

In his inimitable Roy of the Rovers comic-strip way, Denis followed this mercurial summer by helping The Arsenal claim the 1947/48 First Division title. Denis had made his full debut for the Gunners as far back as 1936, but only really established himself in the first XI after the war; when perhaps his happy demeanour was needed more than ever. His Arsenal career only amounted to 60 full official appearances over an association which lasted 14 seasons. Injury and the intervention of the war is the explanation for such a measly return given his ability. During the war, although he was stationed in India, he never-the-less managed to turn out 120 times for the Gunners’ wartime XI, scoring 74 goals, and represented England in unofficial internationals 12 times. He retired from football in 1950, shortly after contributing to Arsenal’s FA Cup success at Wembley, 2-0 against Liverpool. The semi-final that season against Chelsea provides a telling, compressed vignette of the two brothers in Arsenal colours: 2-1 down in the dying minutes, the Gunners are rescued when Denis crosses for Leslie to head home an equaliser! Arsenal duly won the replay, and Joe Mercer went on to lift the cup and bring it back to North London.

Leslie, a bigger and broader man physically than his brother, was built to be a ‘stopper’, the big chinned fella you’d want ‘beside you in the trenches’. Like Denis he was a sporting renaissance man who could turn his hand to most games and compete. He made his debut for Arsenal in 1932, turning out at right-back for the injured captain, Tom Parker, Arsenal’s first trophy lifting skipper, and thus proving instantly he had the heart to fill big boots!

He made 253 appearances in his 22 years at Highbury, again like Denis his career only really took off in the post-war sporting golden age. By then, Leslie had become what nature had always intended him to be, a centre-half (although converted to a makeshift centre forward in a wartime encounter for Arsenal against Leyton Orient, he scored 10 goals in a 15-2 victory!). Like Denis, Leslie won a championship medal in 1948 and the FA Cup in 1950. In the Arsenal team of that era if Denis was the gilding, then Leslie was the foundations and structure. Indeed in recognition of growing stature and importance, Leslie was appointed club captain following the title success of ’48, but in a manner becoming of this gifted and modest gent, he soon after relinquished the honour insisting that Joe Mercer was much the more worthy recipient. Leslie a stalwart of one of the most successful clubs in history was finally recognised for full international honours at the grand old age of 38, which made him the oldest player other than a goalkeeper to make his England debut: unsurprisingly this record still stands.

Leslie retired from football in 1952, but continued his Arsenal connection for three more years as a coach; and like Denis he continued to play first-class cricket, bowing out of the summer game in 1956. Although it was primarily as a wicket-keeper that he made his name at Lords’, he was also a decent lower order batsman, and has 12 wickets to his name as a bowler.

He was granted a much deserved testimonial by Arsenal in 1955, which combined his two great loves, the Gunners and Middlesex in a game of cricket staged at Highbury. Denis also played and once more upstaged his brother! Denis had a reputation for vagueness in his running between the wickets: Trevor Bailey commented once that 'a call for a run from Denis Compton should be treated as no more than a basis for negotiation.' True to form, Denis managed to run his brother out in his own testimonial match before poor Leslie had even faced a single delivery. “You see, I shall be forever in his shadow!”

The two brothers had always trained, and netted together, and been mutually supportive and appreciative of each other’s qualities and unique sporting gifts. They remain perhaps as much England’s sporting greats as they do exclusively Arsenal’s: men of a different age and epoch, a place in time to which the line of Arsenal’s history is maintained in joyful and grateful memory and word.

After their retirements, Denis became a journalist and BBC commentator, while Leslie ran the Prince of Wales pub in North London. Denis died in 1997, while Leslie pre deceased him in 1984. At a dinner given to mark Denis’s 70^th birthday, his famous absent-mindedness was once again to the fore: called away from the high table mid-meal to the telephone by an insistent caller, whereupon he was chided by an imposing voice: “Denis, this is your mother, I’ve checked and you’re not 70, you are only 69!”

The greatest legacy for their sporting times is perhaps not even Denis’s glorious summer of 1947, but that they remain the only brothers to have medals for winning football’s first division championship and cricket’s County Championship, a rare double achieved within the space of 12 months; Middlesex’s title in 1947 with Arsenal’s in 1947/48. Without the war one wonders what they each might have further achieved, given that we had the war, one cannot imagine the gratitude that the English had for the Compton brothers, when a nation turned its weary eyes to them they were met with sparkling smiles, dash, endeavour, and artistry, they were both truly ‘great and modest sportsmen’!

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