Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

spell was three for 5 as he sent back the Lincolnshire middle order. With the bat, Michael Falcon contributed little, other than a 65 against Kent II. Remarkably, there was crowd unrest at Lakenham, where the home crowd took against Walter Franklin. To quote the Eastern Daily Press : ‘The frequency with which he felt justified in appealing on Monday afternoon kept the umpires alert and some of the bobsiders registered their disapproval.’ Michael Falcon’s view of Franklin, characteristically mild and diplomatic, was that ‘he talked too much’. On this occasion, though, his verbosity encouraged the umpires into giving Buckinghamshire six lbw decisions out of the total of nine Norfolk wickets which fell. 1937 In February Michael Falcon was elected to chair the Yarmouth and Gorleston Conservative Association, thereby resuming political activity (albeit behind the scenes) after a gap of fourteen years. He was to pilot the local party through the tricky years of a wartime alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberals that was reminiscent of the coalition that he was part of as an MP in the 1918 election. In 1937 Norfolk increased their fixture list to twelve matches, with Middlesex II as new opponents, perhaps a reflection of their captain’s influence at Lord’s. They lost Championship games for the first time since 1932 and slipped to tenth in the table. Both batting and bowling averages looked strong on paper so the final position in the table was a little disappointing. Michael Falcon had another good ‘bits-and-pieces’ year: he topped 450 runs with four fifties and took 20 reasonably cheap wickets with a haul of five for 49 against Cambridgeshire at Hunstanton proving to be the final five-wicket analysis of his Minor County career. The wicket was conducive to spin and he exploited it cleverly. Against Hertfordshire at Cokenach, Falcon helped Eric Edrich to put on 171 for the fifth wicket, still a record for Norfolk. He was very much the junior partner in the stand, scoring only 69, but he was still making runs all round the wicket. Despite the lengthened Minor Counties season, Falcon had plenty of time for social cricket, the most important match being between Overstrand, captained by Falcon, and Sir Julien Cahn’s XI which was staged to raise funds to help save Overstrand’s ground from development. The game, Elder Statesman: 1930-1939 89