Twenty-One Years of the ACS

vice-chairman,editor of the Middlesex CCC year book and has also built up a reputation as a compiler ofcricket quiz questions over-the years.Lodge retired from the Civil Service's Office ofArts and Libraries in 1989and since then has worked for two charities. A keen road runner he has completed 11 marathons and he is also a Chiltern District councillor in Buckinghamshire. Bill Ponsford was the second cricketer the ACS featured and the series has progressed with a nostalgic mixture ofthe truly renowned and someslightly less familiar.Among these have been J.C.Clay and F.A.Tarrant,whoin 1991,was No.11in the series and this booklet had the distinction of being the 200th that the ACS had produced. Such a heavy and regular outputcan be regarded with legitimate pride by an organisation, which,predominantly,remains one for part-time researchers and statisticians. Needless to say there have been inconsistencies in layout, style and other such areas but the research and scope of the booklets, though, have seldom been less than impressive.ACS publications by their nature will always be vulnerable to corrections and addenda, though many of these arise when fresh information has been unearthed. A deliberate policy has been followed never to shirk making known all such mistakes and amendments,though these have rather tended to be scattered aboutin later booklets.Their whereabouts are now listed in full for the first time in the publications' list at the back of this booklet in the hope this will prove useful. Where the ACS has been negligent at times has been in the area of proof-reading and overall supervision in the various processes from manuscript to publication. These faults became even more apparent as the publishing programme scaled new heights in the 1980s and justifiable complaints from members escalated. Things only improved in 1989 after David Baggett took on the punishing task, of what can best be termed,as acting as midwife at the birth of every booklet.Simultaneously the committee introduced a supremo system, which put an individual in charge of each project and to hold a watching brief at every stage. Between them these measures have brought a marked improvement. Baggett, however, as the eleventh hour arbitrator, has to be given the bulk of the credit for errors being drastically reduced.He has the twin advantages ofan encyclopaedic knowledge ofcricket and a sharp eye for English grammar and punctuation. He estimated at the writer's behest that he had detected more than 7,000 errors in the early production stages of the first 50 ACS booklets that he handled - leaving aside the Journal - and they ranged from inaccurate facts to misplaced commas. Baggett is the first to accept that the occasional gaffe still goes unnoticed, but thanks to him our publications are now virtually error-free. Many of the alterations are dealt with early on but others are still being spotted at the nine 31