GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 212
August 2020
Third Test
These were dark days for the captain. He just wanted to be loved by everybody and told what a brilliant leader he was but nothing would go right for him. The ungrateful members of his team and the spectators kept disagreeing with him on every decision and so he came up with a new strategy of saying at the team talks that he was being very clear and nobody should be in any doubt as to what the new strategy was but that didn’t help as nobody could make out exactly what the strategy entailed since it contradicted what his colleagues were saying.
To make matters worse the Panel of Senior Bowlers who he had set up as the Patsies who he could blame for his daft decisions started denying that he was following their advice. In an interview before the match it was pointed out that if he was really following advice of the Panel of Senior Bowlers he would have instructed his batsmen not too hit the ball in the air or to field too close at short leg.
Because he couldn’t get anybody out he changed his game plan and instead of having all the fielders round the bat he announced that they should spread out. This, on the face of it, seemed simple enough but many of them had lost their throwing arms and so they hung around near the bat. For what seemed an eternity he had repeated his tedious mantra: “Stay in the Ring, Protect our Bowling Averages, Save Runs” but this no longer seemed appropriate to his changed strategy and so he cunningly introduced a new one “Keep awake, Cut off the run flow, No overthrows”, but even he had to admit that it lacked the pizzazz of the earlier one and nobody seemed to pick up on it.
The captain talked to the club treasurer and they decided that it would be a popular move if he said that anyone who wanted to give it a try could come on to bowl and they would pay them for their efforts. Not surprisingly this went down well, and soon huge numbers of spectators were queuing up for their go. The Club Treasurer had long since given up trying to control his expenditure and decided that since it would be some future incumbent of his position that had to deal with it, he might just as well dish out as much as people wanted.
The captain loved being in a position to make up the rules as he went along but he was finding it harder and harder to implement them without becoming unpopular. In particular, he wanted the fielders to spread out onto the outfield, but they kept congregating in big groups, particularly those from Leeds & Liverpool, the overseas players and those who liked the sandier spots. It was becoming increasingly clear that following his directives was optional but if he made an example of some then they would just point to his lack of action against the others.
Another puzzling feature of his leadership was the delay in implementing his decisions. For example, when Dominic Raab pointed out that he could take the new ball before lunch he said “OK we will take it just after tea”. This left everyone baffled as to why he wouldn’t take advantage of it during the intervening period.
He had always, previously, enjoyed mouthing off in public but found that this was continually getting him into hot water. When asked when the second and third elevens could start their matches he said they couldn’t because they hadn’t got any new balls but then a week later had to let them get on with it.
The press were unkind enough to remind him of previous failed strategies such as Herd Immunity and the rarely spoken of Track and Trace. He said that the Track & Trace was working well even though it didn’t seem to be cutting off many boundaries. Regarding Herd Immunity he lamented that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea after all as the opposition continued to pile up the runs.
Nevertheless, amidst all this gloom, the team joker, Mat Hancock, continued to keep everybody amused. In an interview about his boast of having scored over 100,000 runs he also claimed to have played in over 250 test matches. When questioned on this preposterous statement he explained that he included those he had watched on television, played on his computer and those for which his grandfather had got scorecards.
Meanwhile his Best Friend continued to plot in the background arranging for dissenters to be relieved of their positions and Chris Grayling who had been promised the role of Chairman of Pavilion Security was voted out by the ingrates.
Another problem was what to do about the second innings. The Panel wanted the bowlers to pitch the ball up, but the batsmen had huge bats and would keep hitting the ball out of the ground. And then just when things seemed to be settling down, Dominic Raab, who was in charge of away matches, said that if you played against teams south of the river you had to miss the next two home Games.
In and Within on the Professor’s sofa
So, at last, some cricket to watch…and pretty good stuff it was, I thought. I’m not sure that we learnt too much from the Test series (other than winning the toss isn’t all it’s cracked up to be); the “new generation” of Sibley, Crawley, Pope and Bess already had had their moments in South Africa and all seem likely to be around the national side for some time to come.
I think we must resign ourselves to having the most inelegant opening partnership since, well, since as long as I can recall, but if they start to put together opening stands of a hundred plus with any regularity then I imagine most would put up with the lunging right foot of Burns and the almost abandonment of the cover drive from Sibley. I fervently hope that Crawley isn’t going to be one of those Test players who looks classy (and he certainly does that) but doesn’t score that many runs. He’s very young, of course, but now has had 10 Test innings with a highest score of 76. Pope looks set for a long career but I imagine the debate about the England spinner will continue, not that it matters too much in matches where they don’t get a bowl.
Doubtless (because we won) there will be those who will say that the West Indies were not much of a side. They would certainly have been stronger if all the players had travelled to what I understand the French now call “Plague Island”, I hope those who did were very well paid…although that is not a great tradition in West Indies cricket. The decision to leave out Broad looked odd at the time – it would have been more understandable (to me at least) if he had been left out at Manchester in favour of the two quicks. In the event the Manchester pitch didn’t live up to its reputation as the fastest in England and Broad bowled beautifully.
One sadness was the decline of Shai Hope (at Test level at any rate). He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2018 after a stunning series against England with hundreds in both innings at Headingley. How can such a player go, in three years, from a three-Test average of 75 to six innings of: 16,9,25,7,17 and 31? Too much focus on limited overs cricket? (again?). It would surely have been a better plan to have him keep wicket since Dowrich looked pretty poor at times. Mind you, Buttler didn’t look much better and Bairstow wasn’t too tidy in the ODI. I suppose the only solution for England is to select a wicket-keeper…and they will never do that.
Still, much to enjoy: Broad’s success, Stokes’ brilliance and, I thought, Root’s captaincy. Might they have won at Southampton if Root had played? We will, as they say, never know.
But for me the seminal moment of the series was not Broad’s record or Stokes’ belligerence, it was a short video. And what an important one. The contrasting testimony of Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford-Brent before the First Test justifiably went “viral”. Holding is, I think, a fine and decent man and his dignified outraged indignation, together with Rainford-Brent’s emotional literny of racist abuse, formed a truly moving piece of genuine “reality” television. I was both saddened and angry simultaneously.
Cricket, of course, has a decidedly poor record on this subject, notwithstanding recent attempts by many different organisations to be inclusive and, indeed, to take cricket to almost all parts of the world.
The game was conceived in the “Empire” as a non-contact sport that both officers and men of a garrison could play. The “natives” (that is to say the people whose country they were actually garrisoned in) were only very exceptionally involved. The all-white South African teams up to “reintegration”, and the practice of having pre-Worrell West Indies sides captained by a white man are just, I suppose, the more egregious examples. I don’t know how many of the 450 or so Australians who have played Test cricket were non-white, it’s hard to think of more than a few. Presumably the White Australian Policy, in place for the majority of the 20th Century, limited the pool. The greatest stain on the MCC’s reputation (notwithstanding all the good work since) has to be the D’Oliveira Affair. It would be hard to imagine any Googlies reader who doesn’t know the details, but Basil D’Oliveira, after scoring 158 in the Oval Test against the Australians, was left out of the side to tour South Africa. The decision, supported, I recall, by The Times newspaper, produced such a cascade of opprobrium that when Tom Cartwright withdrew (fairly certainly as a matter of conscience) the selectors replaced bigotry with cowardice and selected D’Oliveira.
It would be nice to think that this was all history, but racism can be covert and “unintended” as well. I need look no further than the current Yorkshire squad. The somewhat dated (they still include Bresnan) set of pictures on the website shows a squad of 31. Leaving aside the overseas players (who are not coming anyway) there is one non-white face: Adil Rashid. Think of all the BAME cricketers in (especially) West Yorkshire. Think of the efforts that the Club has made at integration. But, nevertheless, there is one non-white face.
Holding concludes the video by confronting those pitiful apologists who respond to Black Lives Matter by saying “white lives matter”, as if treating unequal situations equally is some form of a priori wisdom:
“We do not need to be told that white lives matter” says Holding “they have always mattered. But I don’t think you know that black lives matter. So don’t shout back at us - we want black lives to matter now”.
A very decent man and one determined not to be silenced. I would urge any Googlies reader who has not seen the Youtube clip to do so. Black Lives Matter...because they do.
This & That
I guess that we will never know the details of the negotiations that the Premier League and the ECB had with government to facilitate the return of their sports. The only thing in common seems to be that they both had extreme mercenary interests to ensure the flow of funds from Sky.
It would appear that a stricter regime was adopted with cricket in that they agreed to enclose all of their players, staff and media in a “bubble” which excluded anyone else from getting near their forts. The ECB was so concerned about any breach of this, which apparently could have led to the cancellation of their tests, that they created an inordinate fuss when Jofra Archer “popped home” on his way from the Aegeus Bowl to Old Trafford. How was this found out? Does the government have spies on all involved? This is in stark contrast to the Premier League players who have lived at home throughout their resumption and they have no doubt mixed with whoever they like during this period. Post the Archer episode the England players were so spooked that when Sibley used saliva on the ball he immediately took the contaminated object to the umpire who utilised a sanitised cloth to remove offending liquids. Sibley’s prompt action presumably saved him from an ECB lifetime ban.
Social distancing also seems to mean different things between the sports. In cricket the off-field players and staff make no apparent attempt to socially distance and few if any wear face masks. But the cameramen have to strictly follow the rules. In soccer the subs are spread out in the stands wearing face masks. But the rest of the off field contingent can apparently do what they like. The managers never wear masks and whisper up close to their subs as they are prepared for action and shout up close to the fourth official who does always, perhaps understandably, seem to wear a mask.
When someone is injured in soccer some of the staff coming on wear little plastic aprons as well as face masks and confront their hot and sweaty players who have no protection. Indeed the on field players seem to have come to the conclusion that this social distancing is all a load of bolloxs and now celebrate any goal which is not disallowed by VRS by jumping on top of each other until the pile includes the full team.
The ECB must have volunteered to place hand sanitisers at strategic positions around their two bubble grounds. Apparently, they spent £500k installing these. Nobody has yet been spotted using any of them. Which begs the question why aren’t they around the soccer grounds?
I have developed in recent years a considerable admiration for the international umpires and their neutrality. However, the return at Southampton to home based umpires was an eye opener to what it was like in the past. During the England first innings Richard Kettleborough gave three England batsmen not out LBW only to have his decisions reversed on appeal. Don’t forget that these weren’t marginal decisions which would have upheld the original decision as “umpire’s call”. Then to make matters worse when the West Indies batted Richard Illingworth twice gave John Campbell out LBW only to have his decisions reversed on appeal. Again, they were blatantly wrong not marginal calls which would have upheld the on-field decision.
Fortunately, there were no paying customers at the Aegeus Bowl to be frustrated by the wretched light meters coming out after a prolonged rain delay. Southampton have state of the art floodlights which were on at the time. Is the ICC saying that these are inadequate for their prescribed task? If the ICC has passed a ground as adequate, including an assessment of the lighting, for test cricket it is surely time to do away with light meters?
It has been very pleasant to see a return to proper sweaters which are being worn by both sides in this series. The England team are being real retro by wearing “creams”. The West Indies are wearing brilliant white which is still reminiscent of the polyesters favoured in the Vaughan era.
The Burns/Sibley opening partnership must be the stylistically ugliest ever to have opened for England. Both brandish their bats like baseball clubs and move around all over the place. Bowlers work out these techniques at test level. Sibley may be doing a crease occupying job but is gruesome to watch. At Southampton Burns looked like a pantomime pirate with a moustache, goatee beard and zinc white cream on his cheeks. Fortunately, by Old Trafford there is, of course, no need for zinc cream.
On sartorial matters I think that the ridiculous headbands worn by the England bowlers are serving no real purpose other than a signal to the government spies that they haven’t been to the barbers during the lockdown and in their bubble confinement. In the unlikely event that anyone’s hair had grown long enough to flop into their eyes surely a pair of scissors in the dressing room would do the trick to the offending fringe? No one ever saw Fred Truman wearing an Alice band. On the other hand, the footballers appear to be back to keeping their barbers fully occupied.
Morgan Matters
The Great man is still confined to his Hampton bunker
Donald McRae has a long piece in today's G (30/6) about L Plunkett, which was slightly interesting, but I think Liam is being rather optimistic in thinking that he will have another 3 years at the Oval (unless this has already been agreed?). Last season he played 3 matches in the Championship, scoring 2 runs (average 0.67) and took 1 wicket for 160. I hope Liam can bounce back to his best, but I am not very confident. Liam's wife is from the USA and still lives there.
Sir Everton de Courcy Weekes has died aged 95. He played 48 Tests scoring 4,455 runs at 58.61 with 15 hundreds. He was knighted in 1995. His son David Murray played in 19 Tests between 1978 and 82. Barry Jarman is dead aged 84. Former Worcs keeper David Humphries is dead aged 66. Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green is dead aged 73.
B Johnson says recreational cricket cannot resume because of issues surrounding "communal teas and dressing rooms". M Vaughan says this is "utter garbage" and Simon Prodger of the National Cricket Conference called it "palpable nonsense".
Two overseas players per county will be allowed in the Championship and One Day Cup from 2021. Kolpak registrations are being terminated at the end of this year.
A second half goal from Dominic Ball gave Rs a point at Luton and this has definitely kept Rs up as we are now 9 points clear of the relegation places and both Hull and Luton have only 2 games left. Crack open the champers!
Middlesex's "new captain" Peter Handscomb will not be playing for Middlesex this season and nor will the limited overs men Mujeeb Ur-Raman and Mitchell Marsh. It sounds as if the cost is too much and "it would not be fair to the other players". Stevie Eskinazi is Middlesex's four day captain for the rest of the season, TSRJ is the vice-capt.
The August Cricketer has a 4 page feature on Roland Butcher, the first black cricketer to play for England, who laments that all the young black kids now want to be footballers and not cricketers and he spends as much time coaching football as he does cricket. MWWS gives us a longish piece on Vintcent van der Bijl. S Hughes gives us a 6-page effort on how to re-engage black British youngsters with cricket. M Brearley discusses leading the "contingent" of players from diverse backgrounds at Middlesex eg R Butcher, W Daniel, W Slack, N Cowans, N Williams, R Maru, L Gomes, H Latchman, D Marriott and W Stewart. S Hughes has another piece on former England seamer Sajid Mahmood who is now in charge of cricket at W Perkin High School in Greenford. Middlesex's plans to develop a new ground at Barnet Copthall have been put on hold because of the trouble Saracens are in.
Rs took a good point away from promoted WBA in a 2-2 draw at the Hawthorns to finish a comfortable 13th with 58 points. Brentford missed out on automatic promotion by losing at home to Barnsley, who would have been relegated if they had not won and they still might go down because Wigan are appealing against a draconian 12 points deduction. The Bees finished third (with the same number of points as Fulham) and could still go up, of course, by winning the play-offs.
Is Rahkeem Cornwall the largest person ever to play a Test?
Barney Ronay has a long and interesting article in the O about racism in English cricket and the arch villain appears to be FJ Titmus, who abused black players like Lonsdale Skinner during his time at Surrey and Skinner was supported by Jon Agnew, when he was also at the Oval. M Selvey and M Brearley are mentioned as allies of the black players as the Middx dressing room "became civilised" after the Titmus years. One Middx player ruined by racism was pace bowler Wes Stewart, who took 130 wickets in 2 years, but was not given a third year. Skinner's career ended with the appearance of Titmus and Alf Gover at the Oval when he was 26 and he went off to do a degree in social sciences followed by an MBA.
Jason Holder thinks that England owe WI a "debt of gratitude" for saving the summer and hopes that England will tour WI before the end of the year and that more Caribbean players are allowed to play in county cricket.
West Ham's David Moyes "is determined to win the race to sign Rs' striker Eberechi Eze", whom Rs value at £20m, with A Villa, C Palace, Newcastle and WBA also interested.
It’s just like school cricket
George sent me the following
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the series with the Windies, on radio and with the BBC highlights. Away from the performances I found myself increasingly swayed towards the empty ground. We had:
No ridiculous ‘look at me’ costumes, with the camera only too willing to oblige
No Mexican waves
No loutish drunken behaviour from early afternoon onwards.
No snakes of empty plastic cartons being passed round
No jingoism or tuneless singing.
In praise of the Stuart Broad hook shot
This appeared on the King Cricket website
There are great batsmen and there are great shots. Then there is the greatest batsman of all (Stuart Broad) and his greatest shot of all (the hook). At this point in his career, Broad’s batting is all but flawless. Measured in conventional terms, it is of course massively flawed – but measured in entertainment terms, the most seismic of those flaws actually translate into enormous strengths.
Combining sweetly-timed drives with no defence whatsoever, there is a spiderweb fragility about every Broad innings that demands you savour each and every boundary (there are usually three of them, and no singles).
Put simply, Broad now offers the greatest density of entertainment of any batsman in Test history. And at the centre of his game is the hook shot, which he plays frequently, brilliantly and awfully.
Broad is afraid of the bouncer – terrified, in fact – so terrified, that he almost cannot help but larrup it into the stands for six. Broad is a cornered cat with the short ball, lashing out with fear in his eyes and scary retractable knives protruding from his furry frigging hands.
Watch Broad play a bouncer. Watch how quickly he’s onto it. He’s onto it so quickly because he plays every delivery as if it’s going to be a bouncer – just in case it does in fact turn out to be one. This level of preparedness is what allows him to get into a position where he can flinch and duck and hit the ball, all at the same time. In a textbook-taunting way he takes his eye off the ball and angles the face of the bat upwards. Broad wants to be dismissed. And if he isn’t dismissed, he’ll reluctantly settle for six runs, or failing that a one-bounce four, or failing that two runs from an absolute skyer that’s somehow landed nowhere near a fielder and plugged in the turf.
Professional Fouls
I have increasingly taken the view that the professional foul should not be tolerated in football and that any player committing one should automatically receive a red card. This would improve the flow of the game and the number of goals scored. I was therefore delighted to receive a cutting from Ken Molloy during the Lockdown which took much the same view. It turns out that the top sides, Manchester City, Liverpool etc are the worst offenders and the reason is because of the modern tactic of the high press. When the opposition get the ball in their own third of the pitch the high press is applied in an attempt to put them under pressure and win the ball back. However, on occasion the opposition get away and this puts them at risk as they have several players on the wrong side of the ball. The tactic of the professional foul is then applied to allow them to re-group. The referees normally give a yellow card for the offence and the practice has been further normalised by the slogan “taking one for the team”, as if that makes it alright.
It has become a critical part of the tactics of the top teams and indeed allowed some of them (eg Manchester City) to substantially play with relegation quality defences for much of the time.
Revier Report
I asked Jim Revier if there had been a Bush Cricket Week
No cricket week but Middlesex league games have started. 50 overs a side. Every team plays every other once. No promotion or relegation. Quite a lot of the Middlesex county players turned out for their assigned clubs - obviously needing the practice.
I saw the Bush six wicket win against Finchley. Couldn't see anything out of the ordinary except the players brought their own teas. Good turnout from old Bush members and the social distancing grew a bit haphazard with a few pints on board.!
King Edward’s Park Matters
George has been going through his photogtaph books (remember those?) and came across this photo which may interest some of you
Bob Peach, Len Stubbs, Colin Newcombe, Jim Sharp, John Bowes, David Gee-Clough, Graham Sharp, Jon Matthews, Robin Ager, Ray Cook
It is a candid half time shot of the South Hampstead football team in a match played against an Old Uffs team and is probably from around 1968. The pitch was a waterlogged mud bath outside the Willesden Stadium in King Edwards Park. But why were there only ten of us? Someone took the picture and it could have been Bill Hart. Russell Bowes is also missing, although his brother was obviously in the team. I think that we had twelve players and that Bill and Bob played a half each. Any one else remember? By the way we won 3-2. And if anyone wants Jon Matthews’ autograph he will be happy to supply it.
Reggie Schwartz
Simon Burnton writes
In 1902, before what would prove Reggie Schwarz’s final summer as an Englishman, Surrey’s Henry Leveson-Gower wrote a preview of the county season in which the then Middlesex player got a brief mention. “It seems that all those who appeared for the metropolitan county last year will again be available, though Mr RO Schwarz is not likely to play.” That’s because he wasn’t good enough: just about good enough to get onto Middlesex’s books, Schwarz – who had already played three times for England in rugby union – was not considered good enough to actually play for them.
As it happens he did get a few games in 1902 but didn’t do much to change anyone’s opinion of him, averaging 8.12 with the bat across 18 innings, bowling only 30 overs and taking a single wicket. On 1 September his final innings ended with a duck, and six days later he boarded the Kingfauns Castle, heading for a new life in South Africa. The following March the Sportsman mentioned him in a summary of Cape cricket: “He has been singularly unlucky, and in his last few matches has been dead out of form. It may be that the change of climate has had its effect on his play.” Just two years later he was back – and transformed. Picked to play for South Africa predominately as a batsman, he did not bowl until the second innings of their fourth match, against Oxford University, with the students already on 116 for 2. Precisely 7.2 overs later he had five wickets, all clean bowled, and Oxford were all out for 167. He ended the tour as the leading wicket-taker, with 96 at 14.81.
“Mr Schwarz’s bowling has come as an unpleasant revelation in its new form to his old comrades,” wrote the Sportsman after he had “played havoc” as the tourists beat Middlesex. The Evening Standard said that he “has improved beyond all knowledge as an all-round exponent of the game since he played for Middlesex a few years back”. And he hadn’t even reached his peak.
In fact he had picked up the skills that would transform his reputation while still at Middlesex, where he had played alongside Bernard Bosanquet, inventor of the googly. A fast-bowler at school and a medium-pacer by the time he emigrated, he returned a googly specialist. Some accounts suggest the key lessons actually took place during that 1904 tour, but it seems extremely unlikely not to have happened before, given the pair’s longstanding friendship – Bosanquet had, for example, invited Schwarz on a short tour of the United States he organised in the autumn of 1901.
Nicolas Bosanquet, Bernard’s brother, later wrote that Schwarz had benefited from “many hours of patient instruction from the inventor, whose only pupil he was” and if the instruction was patient, so was the subsequent improvement. “He openly boasted of his unsuccessful efforts when he first attempted to imitate Bosanquet’s style,” the Reading Observer wrote. “For weeks he persevered in the nets of the Wanderers club at Johannesburg without getting a ball within yards of the wicket. Other cricketers used to assemble in order to play off their latest jokes at him. But it made no difference; Schwarz kept on and, so he says, when the ball did go inside the net he was cheered to the echo.”
In time the googly became Schwarz’s stock ball; he could manage a delivery that went straight, but never mastered the leg break. What he could do, however, is bowl his googly at previously unimagined pace. “Schwarz, in form, was many lengths ahead of any of the household names among bowlers,” the Guardian wrote in 1921. “Alone among bowlers of the highest class Schwarz could, and did, break the ball from the off to a greater width and more quickly than any other bowler ever seen.” Indeed, Schwarz could get so much turn that CB Fry suggested professors of applied mathematics should take a look at his action. “If Reggie could bowl a leg-break he would be the best bowler in the world,” said Gordon White, another member of the 1904 touring side. “Nobody would be able to stand against him. But for the life of him he cannot break from the leg side – only from the off. Still, Schwarz is our greatest man. Bowling with him is a passion.”
White was one of several South Africans to whom Schwarz passed on his skills, and when the team returned in 1907 that pair along with fellow practitioners Aubrey Faulkner and Bert Vogler were unplayable. Schwarz, at his zenith, led the way, taking 143 wickets at 11.5. South Africa won 10 matches and lost two, though England won the nations’ first Test series 1-0 after two draws. In 1908 Leveson-Gower, who had written Schwarz off only a few years earlier, wrote an essay on “the era of that weird and wonderful googly”. “Bosanquet is the proud owner of the patent; but though owner, he was never really a master of it,” he wrote. “It was left to the South Africans to master his theory.” In 1909-10 England lost a five-Test series in South Africa 3-2, with Schwarz’s influence now fading and Vogler and Faulkner responsible for 65 of 88 English wickets to fall.
When the first world war broke out Schwarz joined the King’s Royal Rifles. English newspapers gave sporadic updates of his progress, including an injury to his right hand inflicted by his own horse, and his promotion to deputy assistant quartermaster general (“A big promotion for the greatest of all googly bowlers,” trilled the Mirror).
South Africa’s four googly specialists nearly made it through the war. Only two weeks before it ended, however, White died in what is now Israel, during the Battle of Megiddo. Seven days after the Armistice Schwarz joined him, becoming the most famous cricketer to fall to the last great global pandemic when he was killed by Spanish flu in France.
“Personally he was a man of exceptional charm,” wrote the Times. “He had the great gift of absolute modesty and self-effacement. No one meeting him casually would ever have guessed the renown he had won in the world of sport. Quiet, almost retiring, in manner; without the least trace of side; and with a peculiarly attractive voice and way of speaking. All who knew him knew that at the first possible opportunity he would be in the field in France, quietly and unostentatiously devoting all his gifts to the service of his country.”
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 212
August 2020
Third Test
These were dark days for the captain. He just wanted to be loved by everybody and told what a brilliant leader he was but nothing would go right for him. The ungrateful members of his team and the spectators kept disagreeing with him on every decision and so he came up with a new strategy of saying at the team talks that he was being very clear and nobody should be in any doubt as to what the new strategy was but that didn’t help as nobody could make out exactly what the strategy entailed since it contradicted what his colleagues were saying.
To make matters worse the Panel of Senior Bowlers who he had set up as the Patsies who he could blame for his daft decisions started denying that he was following their advice. In an interview before the match it was pointed out that if he was really following advice of the Panel of Senior Bowlers he would have instructed his batsmen not too hit the ball in the air or to field too close at short leg.
Because he couldn’t get anybody out he changed his game plan and instead of having all the fielders round the bat he announced that they should spread out. This, on the face of it, seemed simple enough but many of them had lost their throwing arms and so they hung around near the bat. For what seemed an eternity he had repeated his tedious mantra: “Stay in the Ring, Protect our Bowling Averages, Save Runs” but this no longer seemed appropriate to his changed strategy and so he cunningly introduced a new one “Keep awake, Cut off the run flow, No overthrows”, but even he had to admit that it lacked the pizzazz of the earlier one and nobody seemed to pick up on it.
The captain talked to the club treasurer and they decided that it would be a popular move if he said that anyone who wanted to give it a try could come on to bowl and they would pay them for their efforts. Not surprisingly this went down well, and soon huge numbers of spectators were queuing up for their go. The Club Treasurer had long since given up trying to control his expenditure and decided that since it would be some future incumbent of his position that had to deal with it, he might just as well dish out as much as people wanted.
The captain loved being in a position to make up the rules as he went along but he was finding it harder and harder to implement them without becoming unpopular. In particular, he wanted the fielders to spread out onto the outfield, but they kept congregating in big groups, particularly those from Leeds & Liverpool, the overseas players and those who liked the sandier spots. It was becoming increasingly clear that following his directives was optional but if he made an example of some then they would just point to his lack of action against the others.
Another puzzling feature of his leadership was the delay in implementing his decisions. For example, when Dominic Raab pointed out that he could take the new ball before lunch he said “OK we will take it just after tea”. This left everyone baffled as to why he wouldn’t take advantage of it during the intervening period.
He had always, previously, enjoyed mouthing off in public but found that this was continually getting him into hot water. When asked when the second and third elevens could start their matches he said they couldn’t because they hadn’t got any new balls but then a week later had to let them get on with it.
The press were unkind enough to remind him of previous failed strategies such as Herd Immunity and the rarely spoken of Track and Trace. He said that the Track & Trace was working well even though it didn’t seem to be cutting off many boundaries. Regarding Herd Immunity he lamented that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea after all as the opposition continued to pile up the runs.
Nevertheless, amidst all this gloom, the team joker, Mat Hancock, continued to keep everybody amused. In an interview about his boast of having scored over 100,000 runs he also claimed to have played in over 250 test matches. When questioned on this preposterous statement he explained that he included those he had watched on television, played on his computer and those for which his grandfather had got scorecards.
Meanwhile his Best Friend continued to plot in the background arranging for dissenters to be relieved of their positions and Chris Grayling who had been promised the role of Chairman of Pavilion Security was voted out by the ingrates.
Another problem was what to do about the second innings. The Panel wanted the bowlers to pitch the ball up, but the batsmen had huge bats and would keep hitting the ball out of the ground. And then just when things seemed to be settling down, Dominic Raab, who was in charge of away matches, said that if you played against teams south of the river you had to miss the next two home Games.
In and Within on the Professor’s sofa
So, at last, some cricket to watch…and pretty good stuff it was, I thought. I’m not sure that we learnt too much from the Test series (other than winning the toss isn’t all it’s cracked up to be); the “new generation” of Sibley, Crawley, Pope and Bess already had had their moments in South Africa and all seem likely to be around the national side for some time to come.
I think we must resign ourselves to having the most inelegant opening partnership since, well, since as long as I can recall, but if they start to put together opening stands of a hundred plus with any regularity then I imagine most would put up with the lunging right foot of Burns and the almost abandonment of the cover drive from Sibley. I fervently hope that Crawley isn’t going to be one of those Test players who looks classy (and he certainly does that) but doesn’t score that many runs. He’s very young, of course, but now has had 10 Test innings with a highest score of 76. Pope looks set for a long career but I imagine the debate about the England spinner will continue, not that it matters too much in matches where they don’t get a bowl.
Doubtless (because we won) there will be those who will say that the West Indies were not much of a side. They would certainly have been stronger if all the players had travelled to what I understand the French now call “Plague Island”, I hope those who did were very well paid…although that is not a great tradition in West Indies cricket. The decision to leave out Broad looked odd at the time – it would have been more understandable (to me at least) if he had been left out at Manchester in favour of the two quicks. In the event the Manchester pitch didn’t live up to its reputation as the fastest in England and Broad bowled beautifully.
One sadness was the decline of Shai Hope (at Test level at any rate). He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2018 after a stunning series against England with hundreds in both innings at Headingley. How can such a player go, in three years, from a three-Test average of 75 to six innings of: 16,9,25,7,17 and 31? Too much focus on limited overs cricket? (again?). It would surely have been a better plan to have him keep wicket since Dowrich looked pretty poor at times. Mind you, Buttler didn’t look much better and Bairstow wasn’t too tidy in the ODI. I suppose the only solution for England is to select a wicket-keeper…and they will never do that.
Still, much to enjoy: Broad’s success, Stokes’ brilliance and, I thought, Root’s captaincy. Might they have won at Southampton if Root had played? We will, as they say, never know.
But for me the seminal moment of the series was not Broad’s record or Stokes’ belligerence, it was a short video. And what an important one. The contrasting testimony of Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford-Brent before the First Test justifiably went “viral”. Holding is, I think, a fine and decent man and his dignified outraged indignation, together with Rainford-Brent’s emotional literny of racist abuse, formed a truly moving piece of genuine “reality” television. I was both saddened and angry simultaneously.
Cricket, of course, has a decidedly poor record on this subject, notwithstanding recent attempts by many different organisations to be inclusive and, indeed, to take cricket to almost all parts of the world.
The game was conceived in the “Empire” as a non-contact sport that both officers and men of a garrison could play. The “natives” (that is to say the people whose country they were actually garrisoned in) were only very exceptionally involved. The all-white South African teams up to “reintegration”, and the practice of having pre-Worrell West Indies sides captained by a white man are just, I suppose, the more egregious examples. I don’t know how many of the 450 or so Australians who have played Test cricket were non-white, it’s hard to think of more than a few. Presumably the White Australian Policy, in place for the majority of the 20th Century, limited the pool. The greatest stain on the MCC’s reputation (notwithstanding all the good work since) has to be the D’Oliveira Affair. It would be hard to imagine any Googlies reader who doesn’t know the details, but Basil D’Oliveira, after scoring 158 in the Oval Test against the Australians, was left out of the side to tour South Africa. The decision, supported, I recall, by The Times newspaper, produced such a cascade of opprobrium that when Tom Cartwright withdrew (fairly certainly as a matter of conscience) the selectors replaced bigotry with cowardice and selected D’Oliveira.
It would be nice to think that this was all history, but racism can be covert and “unintended” as well. I need look no further than the current Yorkshire squad. The somewhat dated (they still include Bresnan) set of pictures on the website shows a squad of 31. Leaving aside the overseas players (who are not coming anyway) there is one non-white face: Adil Rashid. Think of all the BAME cricketers in (especially) West Yorkshire. Think of the efforts that the Club has made at integration. But, nevertheless, there is one non-white face.
Holding concludes the video by confronting those pitiful apologists who respond to Black Lives Matter by saying “white lives matter”, as if treating unequal situations equally is some form of a priori wisdom:
“We do not need to be told that white lives matter” says Holding “they have always mattered. But I don’t think you know that black lives matter. So don’t shout back at us - we want black lives to matter now”.
A very decent man and one determined not to be silenced. I would urge any Googlies reader who has not seen the Youtube clip to do so. Black Lives Matter...because they do.
This & That
I guess that we will never know the details of the negotiations that the Premier League and the ECB had with government to facilitate the return of their sports. The only thing in common seems to be that they both had extreme mercenary interests to ensure the flow of funds from Sky.
It would appear that a stricter regime was adopted with cricket in that they agreed to enclose all of their players, staff and media in a “bubble” which excluded anyone else from getting near their forts. The ECB was so concerned about any breach of this, which apparently could have led to the cancellation of their tests, that they created an inordinate fuss when Jofra Archer “popped home” on his way from the Aegeus Bowl to Old Trafford. How was this found out? Does the government have spies on all involved? This is in stark contrast to the Premier League players who have lived at home throughout their resumption and they have no doubt mixed with whoever they like during this period. Post the Archer episode the England players were so spooked that when Sibley used saliva on the ball he immediately took the contaminated object to the umpire who utilised a sanitised cloth to remove offending liquids. Sibley’s prompt action presumably saved him from an ECB lifetime ban.
Social distancing also seems to mean different things between the sports. In cricket the off-field players and staff make no apparent attempt to socially distance and few if any wear face masks. But the cameramen have to strictly follow the rules. In soccer the subs are spread out in the stands wearing face masks. But the rest of the off field contingent can apparently do what they like. The managers never wear masks and whisper up close to their subs as they are prepared for action and shout up close to the fourth official who does always, perhaps understandably, seem to wear a mask.
When someone is injured in soccer some of the staff coming on wear little plastic aprons as well as face masks and confront their hot and sweaty players who have no protection. Indeed the on field players seem to have come to the conclusion that this social distancing is all a load of bolloxs and now celebrate any goal which is not disallowed by VRS by jumping on top of each other until the pile includes the full team.
The ECB must have volunteered to place hand sanitisers at strategic positions around their two bubble grounds. Apparently, they spent £500k installing these. Nobody has yet been spotted using any of them. Which begs the question why aren’t they around the soccer grounds?
I have developed in recent years a considerable admiration for the international umpires and their neutrality. However, the return at Southampton to home based umpires was an eye opener to what it was like in the past. During the England first innings Richard Kettleborough gave three England batsmen not out LBW only to have his decisions reversed on appeal. Don’t forget that these weren’t marginal decisions which would have upheld the original decision as “umpire’s call”. Then to make matters worse when the West Indies batted Richard Illingworth twice gave John Campbell out LBW only to have his decisions reversed on appeal. Again, they were blatantly wrong not marginal calls which would have upheld the on-field decision.
Fortunately, there were no paying customers at the Aegeus Bowl to be frustrated by the wretched light meters coming out after a prolonged rain delay. Southampton have state of the art floodlights which were on at the time. Is the ICC saying that these are inadequate for their prescribed task? If the ICC has passed a ground as adequate, including an assessment of the lighting, for test cricket it is surely time to do away with light meters?
It has been very pleasant to see a return to proper sweaters which are being worn by both sides in this series. The England team are being real retro by wearing “creams”. The West Indies are wearing brilliant white which is still reminiscent of the polyesters favoured in the Vaughan era.
The Burns/Sibley opening partnership must be the stylistically ugliest ever to have opened for England. Both brandish their bats like baseball clubs and move around all over the place. Bowlers work out these techniques at test level. Sibley may be doing a crease occupying job but is gruesome to watch. At Southampton Burns looked like a pantomime pirate with a moustache, goatee beard and zinc white cream on his cheeks. Fortunately, by Old Trafford there is, of course, no need for zinc cream.
On sartorial matters I think that the ridiculous headbands worn by the England bowlers are serving no real purpose other than a signal to the government spies that they haven’t been to the barbers during the lockdown and in their bubble confinement. In the unlikely event that anyone’s hair had grown long enough to flop into their eyes surely a pair of scissors in the dressing room would do the trick to the offending fringe? No one ever saw Fred Truman wearing an Alice band. On the other hand, the footballers appear to be back to keeping their barbers fully occupied.
Morgan Matters
The Great man is still confined to his Hampton bunker
Donald McRae has a long piece in today's G (30/6) about L Plunkett, which was slightly interesting, but I think Liam is being rather optimistic in thinking that he will have another 3 years at the Oval (unless this has already been agreed?). Last season he played 3 matches in the Championship, scoring 2 runs (average 0.67) and took 1 wicket for 160. I hope Liam can bounce back to his best, but I am not very confident. Liam's wife is from the USA and still lives there.
Sir Everton de Courcy Weekes has died aged 95. He played 48 Tests scoring 4,455 runs at 58.61 with 15 hundreds. He was knighted in 1995. His son David Murray played in 19 Tests between 1978 and 82. Barry Jarman is dead aged 84. Former Worcs keeper David Humphries is dead aged 66. Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green is dead aged 73.
B Johnson says recreational cricket cannot resume because of issues surrounding "communal teas and dressing rooms". M Vaughan says this is "utter garbage" and Simon Prodger of the National Cricket Conference called it "palpable nonsense".
Two overseas players per county will be allowed in the Championship and One Day Cup from 2021. Kolpak registrations are being terminated at the end of this year.
A second half goal from Dominic Ball gave Rs a point at Luton and this has definitely kept Rs up as we are now 9 points clear of the relegation places and both Hull and Luton have only 2 games left. Crack open the champers!
Middlesex's "new captain" Peter Handscomb will not be playing for Middlesex this season and nor will the limited overs men Mujeeb Ur-Raman and Mitchell Marsh. It sounds as if the cost is too much and "it would not be fair to the other players". Stevie Eskinazi is Middlesex's four day captain for the rest of the season, TSRJ is the vice-capt.
The August Cricketer has a 4 page feature on Roland Butcher, the first black cricketer to play for England, who laments that all the young black kids now want to be footballers and not cricketers and he spends as much time coaching football as he does cricket. MWWS gives us a longish piece on Vintcent van der Bijl. S Hughes gives us a 6-page effort on how to re-engage black British youngsters with cricket. M Brearley discusses leading the "contingent" of players from diverse backgrounds at Middlesex eg R Butcher, W Daniel, W Slack, N Cowans, N Williams, R Maru, L Gomes, H Latchman, D Marriott and W Stewart. S Hughes has another piece on former England seamer Sajid Mahmood who is now in charge of cricket at W Perkin High School in Greenford. Middlesex's plans to develop a new ground at Barnet Copthall have been put on hold because of the trouble Saracens are in.
Rs took a good point away from promoted WBA in a 2-2 draw at the Hawthorns to finish a comfortable 13th with 58 points. Brentford missed out on automatic promotion by losing at home to Barnsley, who would have been relegated if they had not won and they still might go down because Wigan are appealing against a draconian 12 points deduction. The Bees finished third (with the same number of points as Fulham) and could still go up, of course, by winning the play-offs.
Is Rahkeem Cornwall the largest person ever to play a Test?
Barney Ronay has a long and interesting article in the O about racism in English cricket and the arch villain appears to be FJ Titmus, who abused black players like Lonsdale Skinner during his time at Surrey and Skinner was supported by Jon Agnew, when he was also at the Oval. M Selvey and M Brearley are mentioned as allies of the black players as the Middx dressing room "became civilised" after the Titmus years. One Middx player ruined by racism was pace bowler Wes Stewart, who took 130 wickets in 2 years, but was not given a third year. Skinner's career ended with the appearance of Titmus and Alf Gover at the Oval when he was 26 and he went off to do a degree in social sciences followed by an MBA.
Jason Holder thinks that England owe WI a "debt of gratitude" for saving the summer and hopes that England will tour WI before the end of the year and that more Caribbean players are allowed to play in county cricket.
West Ham's David Moyes "is determined to win the race to sign Rs' striker Eberechi Eze", whom Rs value at £20m, with A Villa, C Palace, Newcastle and WBA also interested.
It’s just like school cricket
George sent me the following
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the series with the Windies, on radio and with the BBC highlights. Away from the performances I found myself increasingly swayed towards the empty ground. We had:
No ridiculous ‘look at me’ costumes, with the camera only too willing to oblige
No Mexican waves
No loutish drunken behaviour from early afternoon onwards.
No snakes of empty plastic cartons being passed round
No jingoism or tuneless singing.
In praise of the Stuart Broad hook shot
This appeared on the King Cricket website
There are great batsmen and there are great shots. Then there is the greatest batsman of all (Stuart Broad) and his greatest shot of all (the hook). At this point in his career, Broad’s batting is all but flawless. Measured in conventional terms, it is of course massively flawed – but measured in entertainment terms, the most seismic of those flaws actually translate into enormous strengths.
Combining sweetly-timed drives with no defence whatsoever, there is a spiderweb fragility about every Broad innings that demands you savour each and every boundary (there are usually three of them, and no singles).
Put simply, Broad now offers the greatest density of entertainment of any batsman in Test history. And at the centre of his game is the hook shot, which he plays frequently, brilliantly and awfully.
Broad is afraid of the bouncer – terrified, in fact – so terrified, that he almost cannot help but larrup it into the stands for six. Broad is a cornered cat with the short ball, lashing out with fear in his eyes and scary retractable knives protruding from his furry frigging hands.
Watch Broad play a bouncer. Watch how quickly he’s onto it. He’s onto it so quickly because he plays every delivery as if it’s going to be a bouncer – just in case it does in fact turn out to be one. This level of preparedness is what allows him to get into a position where he can flinch and duck and hit the ball, all at the same time. In a textbook-taunting way he takes his eye off the ball and angles the face of the bat upwards. Broad wants to be dismissed. And if he isn’t dismissed, he’ll reluctantly settle for six runs, or failing that a one-bounce four, or failing that two runs from an absolute skyer that’s somehow landed nowhere near a fielder and plugged in the turf.
Professional Fouls
I have increasingly taken the view that the professional foul should not be tolerated in football and that any player committing one should automatically receive a red card. This would improve the flow of the game and the number of goals scored. I was therefore delighted to receive a cutting from Ken Molloy during the Lockdown which took much the same view. It turns out that the top sides, Manchester City, Liverpool etc are the worst offenders and the reason is because of the modern tactic of the high press. When the opposition get the ball in their own third of the pitch the high press is applied in an attempt to put them under pressure and win the ball back. However, on occasion the opposition get away and this puts them at risk as they have several players on the wrong side of the ball. The tactic of the professional foul is then applied to allow them to re-group. The referees normally give a yellow card for the offence and the practice has been further normalised by the slogan “taking one for the team”, as if that makes it alright.
It has become a critical part of the tactics of the top teams and indeed allowed some of them (eg Manchester City) to substantially play with relegation quality defences for much of the time.
Revier Report
I asked Jim Revier if there had been a Bush Cricket Week
No cricket week but Middlesex league games have started. 50 overs a side. Every team plays every other once. No promotion or relegation. Quite a lot of the Middlesex county players turned out for their assigned clubs - obviously needing the practice.
I saw the Bush six wicket win against Finchley. Couldn't see anything out of the ordinary except the players brought their own teas. Good turnout from old Bush members and the social distancing grew a bit haphazard with a few pints on board.!
King Edward’s Park Matters
George has been going through his photogtaph books (remember those?) and came across this photo which may interest some of you
Bob Peach, Len Stubbs, Colin Newcombe, Jim Sharp, John Bowes, David Gee-Clough, Graham Sharp, Jon Matthews, Robin Ager, Ray Cook
It is a candid half time shot of the South Hampstead football team in a match played against an Old Uffs team and is probably from around 1968. The pitch was a waterlogged mud bath outside the Willesden Stadium in King Edwards Park. But why were there only ten of us? Someone took the picture and it could have been Bill Hart. Russell Bowes is also missing, although his brother was obviously in the team. I think that we had twelve players and that Bill and Bob played a half each. Any one else remember? By the way we won 3-2. And if anyone wants Jon Matthews’ autograph he will be happy to supply it.
Reggie Schwartz
Simon Burnton writes
In 1902, before what would prove Reggie Schwarz’s final summer as an Englishman, Surrey’s Henry Leveson-Gower wrote a preview of the county season in which the then Middlesex player got a brief mention. “It seems that all those who appeared for the metropolitan county last year will again be available, though Mr RO Schwarz is not likely to play.” That’s because he wasn’t good enough: just about good enough to get onto Middlesex’s books, Schwarz – who had already played three times for England in rugby union – was not considered good enough to actually play for them.
As it happens he did get a few games in 1902 but didn’t do much to change anyone’s opinion of him, averaging 8.12 with the bat across 18 innings, bowling only 30 overs and taking a single wicket. On 1 September his final innings ended with a duck, and six days later he boarded the Kingfauns Castle, heading for a new life in South Africa. The following March the Sportsman mentioned him in a summary of Cape cricket: “He has been singularly unlucky, and in his last few matches has been dead out of form. It may be that the change of climate has had its effect on his play.” Just two years later he was back – and transformed. Picked to play for South Africa predominately as a batsman, he did not bowl until the second innings of their fourth match, against Oxford University, with the students already on 116 for 2. Precisely 7.2 overs later he had five wickets, all clean bowled, and Oxford were all out for 167. He ended the tour as the leading wicket-taker, with 96 at 14.81.
“Mr Schwarz’s bowling has come as an unpleasant revelation in its new form to his old comrades,” wrote the Sportsman after he had “played havoc” as the tourists beat Middlesex. The Evening Standard said that he “has improved beyond all knowledge as an all-round exponent of the game since he played for Middlesex a few years back”. And he hadn’t even reached his peak.
In fact he had picked up the skills that would transform his reputation while still at Middlesex, where he had played alongside Bernard Bosanquet, inventor of the googly. A fast-bowler at school and a medium-pacer by the time he emigrated, he returned a googly specialist. Some accounts suggest the key lessons actually took place during that 1904 tour, but it seems extremely unlikely not to have happened before, given the pair’s longstanding friendship – Bosanquet had, for example, invited Schwarz on a short tour of the United States he organised in the autumn of 1901.
Nicolas Bosanquet, Bernard’s brother, later wrote that Schwarz had benefited from “many hours of patient instruction from the inventor, whose only pupil he was” and if the instruction was patient, so was the subsequent improvement. “He openly boasted of his unsuccessful efforts when he first attempted to imitate Bosanquet’s style,” the Reading Observer wrote. “For weeks he persevered in the nets of the Wanderers club at Johannesburg without getting a ball within yards of the wicket. Other cricketers used to assemble in order to play off their latest jokes at him. But it made no difference; Schwarz kept on and, so he says, when the ball did go inside the net he was cheered to the echo.”
In time the googly became Schwarz’s stock ball; he could manage a delivery that went straight, but never mastered the leg break. What he could do, however, is bowl his googly at previously unimagined pace. “Schwarz, in form, was many lengths ahead of any of the household names among bowlers,” the Guardian wrote in 1921. “Alone among bowlers of the highest class Schwarz could, and did, break the ball from the off to a greater width and more quickly than any other bowler ever seen.” Indeed, Schwarz could get so much turn that CB Fry suggested professors of applied mathematics should take a look at his action. “If Reggie could bowl a leg-break he would be the best bowler in the world,” said Gordon White, another member of the 1904 touring side. “Nobody would be able to stand against him. But for the life of him he cannot break from the leg side – only from the off. Still, Schwarz is our greatest man. Bowling with him is a passion.”
White was one of several South Africans to whom Schwarz passed on his skills, and when the team returned in 1907 that pair along with fellow practitioners Aubrey Faulkner and Bert Vogler were unplayable. Schwarz, at his zenith, led the way, taking 143 wickets at 11.5. South Africa won 10 matches and lost two, though England won the nations’ first Test series 1-0 after two draws. In 1908 Leveson-Gower, who had written Schwarz off only a few years earlier, wrote an essay on “the era of that weird and wonderful googly”. “Bosanquet is the proud owner of the patent; but though owner, he was never really a master of it,” he wrote. “It was left to the South Africans to master his theory.” In 1909-10 England lost a five-Test series in South Africa 3-2, with Schwarz’s influence now fading and Vogler and Faulkner responsible for 65 of 88 English wickets to fall.
When the first world war broke out Schwarz joined the King’s Royal Rifles. English newspapers gave sporadic updates of his progress, including an injury to his right hand inflicted by his own horse, and his promotion to deputy assistant quartermaster general (“A big promotion for the greatest of all googly bowlers,” trilled the Mirror).
South Africa’s four googly specialists nearly made it through the war. Only two weeks before it ended, however, White died in what is now Israel, during the Battle of Megiddo. Seven days after the Armistice Schwarz joined him, becoming the most famous cricketer to fall to the last great global pandemic when he was killed by Spanish flu in France.
“Personally he was a man of exceptional charm,” wrote the Times. “He had the great gift of absolute modesty and self-effacement. No one meeting him casually would ever have guessed the renown he had won in the world of sport. Quiet, almost retiring, in manner; without the least trace of side; and with a peculiarly attractive voice and way of speaking. All who knew him knew that at the first possible opportunity he would be in the field in France, quietly and unostentatiously devoting all his gifts to the service of his country.”
Googlies Website
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