Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

When Warwickshire won the Championship in 1911, I was then only nine years of age, not old enough I am afraid to appreciate the feat, but nevertheless I can recall my father taking me down to New Street Station when the train returned from Northampton, so I can feel privileged to number myself among those whom you had in mind when writing the book. I was never a startling success at the game myself, but without attempting any bragging spirit, can pride myself on a knowledge of its fine points, and am acknowledged by my friends as a second Wisden . (Even the Birmingham Mail have on occasion so far forgot themselves as to publish Test match records I have submitted.) Since 1913 the number of matches I have missed at Edgbaston could be counted on my fingers, and oft have I sighed for your return. Your remarkable skill at the game, apart from your personality would, I am convinced, have taken Warwicks to the head of the championship table more than once since the war. When I recall the number of matches that have been ‘thrown away’ at Edgbaston for the lack of that ‘little something’ that such as yourself possessed, I could have wept. Please do not think I am attempting flattery, I am quoting cold facts, as a matter of fact I have spoken to you but once, that was in 1913, when you very kindly signed my autograph book, which I still treasure. Yours very truly, Norman H. Freeman Certainly a sad letter and one can understand Foster’s being moved. I know nothing of Norman Freeman; unemployment in the early 1930s was rife, and one hopes he eventually found a ‘position’. The more enterprising emigrated, left their home area, or became self-employed. What became of Norman Freeman? Why did Foster come out so strongly against bodyline? Maybe he did genuinely believe in the unsporting nature of that form of attack. Alternatively he was at the time working on a second book of memoirs and perhaps he thought it may do him some good to nail his banner so firmly against bodyline. The new book never appeared in print and having seen Foster’s original incomplete typescript and his handwritten notes I can state there was never the slightest possibility of its publication. He was clearly now hopelessly and embarrassingly mentally sick. In 1934, Foster still thought he had something to offer. Before the Test series began, he told R.E.S.Wyatt that, since he knew how to bowl to Australians, he felt he (Foster) should be chosen for England. Now 45 and with his first-class career twenty years behind him, no longer could he possibly be taken seriously. Even so, as late as February 1937 in a letter to Roy Genders, later a first-class cricketer and author, Foster stated that E.F.Hudson Ltd, booksellers and publishers in New Street, Birmingham, The shambolic 1930s 105