Cricket's Historians

216 The Formation of the Association of Cricket Statisticians they inserted the following advert in The Cricketer of October 1972: “STATISTICIANS. Anyone interested in formation of ‘Cricket Statisticians Association’ contact Box No.226” Several years before C.J.Fuke had asked readers (in Playfair Cricket Monthly ) whether there was anyone who might be interested in such an organisation and asking them to contact him. Fuke cited the example of the National Union of Track Statisticians (founded in 1958) as the kind of group he wished to create. Seemingly he had no response. Christopher Fuke was the statistician for the Surrey Cricket Clubs Championship Association and collected all the match scores as well as providing the statistics for the annual handbook (founded in 1973) of the Association. He joined the ACS soon after its founding. Brooke and Lambert provoked sufficient reaction to call for a meeting of possible members. Between 20 and 30 interested parties turned up at Edgbaston in April 1973. Among those present was Irving Rosenwater, who spoke eloquently against the formation of a Statisticians’ Association, stating that those who were in attendance should work within the confines of The Cricket Society. He failed, but only by a single vote, to scupper the proposed new organization.The new society was formed and it was resolved by the meeting that it should be called ‘The Association of Cricket Statisticians’. Robert William Brooke was born in Solihull in 1940 and educated at Yardley Grammar School. His first publication, at the age of 19, was an eleven page statistical survey of the match series, Warwickshire v Worcestershire. He had his first letter printed in Playfair Cricket Monthly in March 1969, in The Cricketer in October 1971 and, a particular interest of his, contributed a first obituary notice to The Cricketer in December 1971 (that of I.W.Smith). Brooke is a Warwickshire man and he also was to become that county’s statistician and librarian. His devotion to the history and statistics of cricket is absolute – a flaw has therefore been a difficulty in comprehending that not all members possessed his fanaticism. His career as a cricket historian will unfold as this narrative continues Dennis A.Lambert was born in August 1934 and educated at Skinners’