Gubby Under Pressure

down and dying I have felt so tired and worried at times. I don’t think any captain has ever had quite what I have had to put up with as I really have had no one to help me at all off the field.’ The next day, while still resting at Moombara, Allen wrote to tell his parents that the long weekend had done him a lot of good. ‘I felt really desperate when I came down here. I was so tired and could have done no good at cricket if I hadn’t had the break.’ And a week later, in Brisbane, he could claim a full recovery: ‘I have had no late nights since I left Sydney and am feeling fully recovered as the result. I am now in full training and haven’t had a drink for 12 days or smoked for ten days.’ With the First Test due to start in five days he outlined his preparations: ‘Tomorrow, I am going out to play golf earlyish so as to get back to the cricket by 1 o’clock and am going to the gymnasium in the evening about 6.00. On Tuesday I shall start bowling again and that will give me three good days practice before the match.’ Those practice sessions were long overdue. Allen had not played any cricket for a fortnight, missing both the game in Sydney and then the state match with Queensland in Brisbane where, once again, Robins was able to take his place as captain. Allen’s next letter was right in the middle of the First Test, with the result far from certain. Not surprisingly, he was feeling the pressures of captaincy: ‘I can only say that these Test matches simply knock hell out of me, I get so worked up and excited.’ Sensibly, and as previously threatened, he had imposed a strict embargo on public engagements while the match was in progress and even resisted, no doubt reluctantly, the temptations on offer for private entertainment with relatives and friends. ‘Denis and Dick and several other Sydney-ites flew up on Friday morning and are having a great “party” up here, but I have been very quiet. I just go to the movies four or five times a week and then straight to bed.’ Early success in the First Test brought a whole new pressure to bear on Allen’s already overstretched timetable of responsibilities. He had received ‘thousands of telegrams from all over the world and have had to order up a typist for Monday morning to deal with them all.’ This correspondence became an ongoing chore for the rest of the series. He doesn’t mention any of the usual problems, when writing home during and after the Second Test in Sydney. This was probably because the Test took place during the week before Christmas, leaving a three day break before the team went off to Newcastle for a two day game with a New South Wales Country XI, giving Allen the opportunity to spend his time socialising privately at parties and dinners in Sydney. Indeed, among the Allen letters from 1936/37, there is a letter from Walter Robins to Allen’s father, written on Christmas Eve, in which he lets him know that ‘Gubby is in fine form’. In his letter Robins also confesses that ‘although I haven’t done a thing he really makes me believe that I’ve actually done wonders!’ A rather unfortunate choice of words, bearing in mind Allen’s previous criticisms, but Allen had probably been attempting to motivate his friend whose performances in the first two Tests were disappointing. It is sad to note that nowhere in the letter does Robins make any reference to how Allen was coping with his off the field burdens, presumably because they were something of which Robins was blissfully Managing the show 26