Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

Allan saw the club secretary. “He said, ‘You’ve got a broken contract. H.H. wants to know how much you want for it.’ I said, ‘How much do I want?’ He said, ‘It’s worth a thousand or two thousand pounds.’ So I said, ‘Where’s that contract?’ He said, ‘It’s in the safe.’ I said, ‘Get it out and give it to me.’ He gave it to me and I tore it up. He said, ‘What the hell have you done? You’re a bit of a bloody fool.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not. Because when I went to South Africa, all my pay packets were in the safe when I came back.’” Returning to cricket in 1950, Allan enjoyed an improved season with the bat, raising his average from 30 to just over 40, but the after-effects of his operation prevented him from bowling in the early matches and he sent down barely half the overs of the previous summer. Glamorgan, meanwhile, dropped further down the table, now victims of an exceptionally wet summer in which nine championship matches were abandoned without a decision on first innings. In the eyes of the not always objective J.B.G.Thomas, writing in Playfair , Allan was ‘unlucky not to go to Australia’. Despite the wet summer, his form had certainly been better than in 1949, but he 56 Back on the County Circuit West Indian opener Allan Rae bowled by Allan for 11 at Swansea