Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

Turning out in seven matches in 1965 and 1966, he made a steady if unspectacular contribution. With the bat he averaged 25.30, with one fifty against Buckinghamshire, and he took 19 wickets at 18.47. A highlight of Allan’s Suffolk career was helping his side to qualify for a place in the Gillette Cup. He recalls the tensions of the match against Nottinghamshire Second XI that secured Suffolk a home tie against Kent. But, when their big match came round, Allan opted not to play. “I said, ‘I’m not playing. You let the young boys enjoy their pleasure of playing against Colin Cowdrey and all of them. I’ve done it for so many years. It would make no difference to me.’ So I didn’t play.” Allan and Molly settled happily into life at Framlingham. The coaching was soon going well for Allan, while Molly found a job with a greengrocer in the town. There she soon made an impression on the shop’s owner by suggesting that they should offer fruit and vegetables at reduced prices to the older customers instead of throwing them out. “She more or less doubled the takings,” Allan says. They were both content with their lot, when, in 1970, a new opportunity presented itself: Arnold Dyson was about to retire at Oundle. A larger and more famous public school near Peterborough in Northants, its foundation dating back to 1556, Oundle’s links with Glamorgan had begun fortuitously back in 1946 when the Welshmen were playing Warwickshire at Edgbaston. In the home teamwas Michael Mills, a Cambridge blue that year and destined to captain the University in 1948. He recalls being approached by Austin Matthews, who had coached at Stowe School before the war but was now playing a full season for Glamorgan. Matthews told Mills that Arnold Dyson would soon be retiring from county cricket and that he was looking for a position with a public school. An Old Oundelian, Mills had a word in the appropriate ear and Dyson’s long career at the school started in 1948. Oundle’s strong cricket tradition in post-war years owes much to Michael Mills, who returned to his old school to devote his whole working life to teaching there. He ran the cricket for many years and was immediately elected secretary and treasurer of the Oundle Rovers, the old boys’ side. At the age of 85, more than 20 years after retiring from teaching, he was still looking after the Rovers in 2006, when a dinner held in London that autumn, with Allan in attendance, celebrated his devotion to the cause. ‘Go Back to What You Love’ 97