Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

‘What the hell have I got Watkins in the side for? He should be in the first side – he’s streets ahead of anybody else.’” Once given a place in the first team, Allan found little help from those who were supposed to be his team-mates. “I didn’t like the atmosphere. I didn’t like the attitude of the players. It’s amazing in the old days how they could play you off the field. You’re running alongside somebody who’s got the ball and you shout for it. He’ll look and he’ll give you the ball seconds after you’ve shouted for it – and you collect the opposition at the same time. The only help I got was from the full back, who eventually went up to Notts County as manager. I know it’s an awful thing to say but there were three or four lads towards the end of the season going for treatment and there was nothing wrong with them. They just didn’t want to play.” The winter of 1946/47 is remembered as one of the severest of the century. Snow lay over Britain for weeks on end, taking its toll of all outdoor sport, and the football season had to be extended to complete the fixtures. Allan faced a clash of loyalties as cricket was getting under way. “The Plymouth chairman said, ‘The season’s extended.’ I said, ‘Not bloody likely. I’m going to Wales, I’m playing my cricket.’ He said, ‘You can’t do that – you’re under contract.’ I said, ‘Waste of bloody paper because I’m going.’ And, of course, I did break my contract. I went.” Back at Glamorgan, where Wilf Wooller was now captain, Allan began the new season slowly. There were fifties against Yorkshire and Surrey, but a run of modest scores ended with a vengeance against Northants in early July. His 146 in that match was the first of four championship centuries. The second came two matches later, against Worcestershire at Ebbw Vale. One who saw the whole of this match was John Arlott. Apart from the five Tests against South Africa, his book of the season, Gone to the Cricket , covered just two other games, the tourists’ traditional opener at Worcester and Glamorgan’s championship match with Worcestershire at Ebbw Vale. In his early days of cricket commentating, Arlott still had much to learn about the intricacies of the game. To redress this problem, he A Foothold in County Cricket 30 Wilf Wooller