The Summer Field

116 Selection and Recruitment Ernest Hayes as a Surrey player. county cricket hard and unwelcoming. Tom Austin had two years on the Lord’s staff – ‘Fred Titmus and I joined the same day’ — before he began National Service in 1950 and decided to stay in the Royal Air Force. Tom Austin tells the story of how Titmus, aged 16, made his Middlesex debut in June 1949: One evening we were out in the nets when Archie Fowler the head coach, Robins and Gubby Allen came out and said, Fowler, we need a man for tomorrow. Who do you recommend. Titmus. They bowled at Fred and Robins said no, you bowl at me. Titmus bowled off-breaks. ‘Don’t bowl that rubbish, bowl seam.’ Then; ‘right, pack your bags, you are playing at Somerset tomorrow.’ Up to a week before Reg Deller [another 16-year-old] was bright-eyed boy. But for some reason he had fallen out. Titmus was a solid fielder, batsman, you couldn’t go wrong by picking him because he would do a job. The two former England captains, Walter Robins, aged 43, and Allen, aged 46, each played at Bath, with success; and Middlesex won. Tom Austin summed up Archie Fowler: ‘… he more or less ignored you if you didn’t have the obvious talent, he didn’t really coach, he picked out people …’ As Austin hinted, the likes of Robins and Allen dictated to coaches, let alone the coached youths. As a coach’s reputation – and maybe job – were at stake with every choice, it made sense for Fowler to pick the all-round and dependable. Any shortcoming in technique or character became painfully obvious on the field. Plaindealer witnessed an example at Ilkeston in July 1933, when Thomas Higson, the 22-year-old ‘son of a distinguished Derbyshire captain’ batted. The crowd laughed because the Nottinghamshire captain Arthur Carr ‘treated him as if he were a child