Gubby Under Pressure

A captain’s view of his players During the voyage from New Zealand to the United States on the Oceanic liner Mariposa , Allen began to write his official report of the tour for submission to the MCC Committee on his arrival back in London. Some players may have been hoping that stops en route to visit the beautiful islands of Fiji, Samoa and Honolulu would put the captain in a mellow and less critical frame of mind. Whatever it contained, the report did not survive Warner’s response to Government appeals between 1939 and 1945 for the collection of paper salvage to help the War effort when, along with the more sensitive reports from the 1932/33 tour that Warner was glad to see vanish from prying eyes, they were apparently ‘dumped’ by accident or design. Allen must have kept a copy of the report for himself because Swanton included quotes in the biography. Bearing in mind Allen’s ‘no holds barred’ approach to criticism of several of his players when writing his letters, which he knew would find their way into Warner’s hands, it seems probable that his report was written in similar plain language. Too blunt for Swanton to reproduce anyway, as he avoids the problem of showing Allen in such an unforgiving mood by saying: ‘Much of his comment I have recorded in this chapter and the last, so a précis of his main conclusions will, I think, meet the case.’ In fact, the only references in Swanton’s book to Allen’s frequently expressed opinions of his ‘flops and failures’ are to Allen’s wish that Warner was with him to help sort out those players lacking a ‘cricket brain’, and a brief allusion to English batting failing to use its feet against leg spin bowling. A further clue to the blunt and forthright nature of Allen’s judgments is contained in correspondence from P.G.Wodehouse to a friend after the author had met Allen in Hollywood. ‘Gubby struck me as a bit soured by it all. He was also sick with the rank and file of the English team, who failed enthusiastically on every occasion.’ There seems little doubt that Allen’s frank report had an impact upon future selection decisions, as neither Sims nor Worthington ever played for England again; Copson and Fagg were not given another chance until 1939; and Fishlock did not play another Test until after the war. Swanton prefers to draw a discreet veil over Allen’s intolerance and concentrates instead on those parts of the report that featured Allen’s notions on the methods of team selection preceding tours, choice of umpires, covered pitches and excessive official functions. One player who did not suffer in the future from Allen’s low opinion was Robins. Did Allen water down the criticism of his friend’s behaviour and performance as chronicled in his letters, leaving out the loss of the professionals’ respect, disregard for authority and other misdemeanours, in order not to ruin Robins’ chances for the England captaincy in the summer to come? Warner would have known of Allen’s condemnation of Robins, of course, but as chairman of the selectors he apparently chose to ignore it and convinced the other selectors that Robins should be elevated to the position of England captain for the 1937 Test series against New Zealand, in preference to other candidates. This would have suited Allen very well, after having made it clear that he would probably play no first-class cricket that year other than the special match at Lord’s in May. Looking ahead to 1938 and a visit from the The assessment 66