The St. David's community will pay their last respects today to one of the Island's top cricketers from the sixties and seventies when the funeral of former captain Sidney (Cowboy) Hall is held at the St. George's Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Hall, who died earlier this week at age 62, was a middle-order batsman and opening bowler with the St. David's team.

Born in Flatts and the younger brother of another well-known cricketer, Alfred (Fleas) Hall, Sidney was brought up in St. David's by an aunt, Emily Paynter, from a young age.

By the time he made his debut for St. David's in the Eastern Counties as a teenager in 1958, Alfred, older by five years, was already playing for Flatts in the counties. Ironically, Sidney's debut was against Flatts at Flatts field when he scored 86.

However, something stuck out in the teenager's mind from that match. "He wouldn't bowl to me," Sidney said of Alfred in a 1988 article in the Eastern Counties magazine. Their mother was from St. David's and their father from Flatts.

"As soon as I got out he came on the ball and bowled the rest of the team out. Flatts won that game.

"When we played against each other my aunt would root for me and my mother would root for Fleas. But once the game was over everybody supported whoever got through to the next round."

In his early 20s, Sidney became captain of the St. David's league team, a position he held from 1961 to 1970. He stopped playing in 1972 at the age of 32, by which time he had scored 504 runs in the counties and taken 29 wickets at an average of 14.10, including best figures of five for 28.

Even today, Hall is rated by many as the best captain St. David's ever had. His secret, he said, was that he treated players with respect and always listened to their opinions.

"I never had that `I'm in charge, do what I say' attitude, though as long as the game was in progress I let them know I was the captain," Hall said in the magazine article.

"But I would hear them out if they came up with a suggestion."

Current St. David's president, Wilbur Pitcher, played under Hall for many years and served as his vice-captain. He remembers Hall as a strict disciplinarian who commanded respect from his players.

"I came up under Wilbur Burgess and then `Cowboy' took over as captain a year later," Pitcher recalled.

"He was really strict, he really put the club on the map. I was his vice-captain for several years, he really meant business. His feeling was that one player could pull the team apart, so you all had to play a part."

Hall never saw an Eastern Counties game after 1974, the year he became a Seventh Day Adventist. Still, his name lives on at the club where he made his mark in cricket alongside some of Bermuda's top players of that era.

Hall is survived by his wife June and six children. Funeral services begin at 4 p.m.