Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

Acknowledgements I am grateful to the ACS, for publishing this biography and especially to its editor David Jeater for giving me my ‘head’ when at times he may have had his doubts. David also took photographs in London and Essex and examined Essex newspapers for reports of Frank Foster’s various ‘problems’. This is, I hope you will agree, like no other cricketing biography – not only because of the eccentric style of the author. It is several years since I realised there was much more to Frank Foster than the ‘official’ version – a fine allrounder whose career was cut short by a road accident – and after being advised by someone in cricket for whom I had the highest respect to ‘let him rest in peace’, I offered it to the ACS. I am extremely grateful to my mate Steve Sheen for the amount of help he has given me – especially when glaucoma made it difficult to undertake vital further research via microfilm. Thanks also to Peter Wynne-Thomas for helping out after personal reasons forced me to dispose of most of my cricket library, though ‘research’ visits to Trent Bridge did tend to degenerate into 80% nattering time. Then there is Stephen Chalke who, although he felt he could not publish my work in the form I wanted, did encourage me and suggest the title; David Frith, who sent me a tape of Foster’s ‘bodyline’ speech in 1933 and also encouraged in other ways; and Charlie Wat, who really put himself out researching Australian sources. Those were the major helpers: there are others who helped, some without knowing, and whom I now list, in no particular order: John Loynton, historian of Solihull School; Bob Blackham of the Tolkien Society; Brian Halford, George Dobell, Nigel Foster, Tony Robinson, Glyn Powell, Steve Musk, Neil Duggan, Ken Birrell, Josephine Cooper, Steve Williams, Bobbie Judd, Arthur Wentworth, my late cousin Michael Carroll, David Foot, Dr Paul Lester; M.J.K.Smith, a former captain of Warwickshire, and now president of the ACS, who contributed the foreword; and Pete Griffiths, with whose organisation CricketArchive I was able to check statistics. In addition to these I have made good use of the resources of the Birmingham Central and Solihull public libraries and the British Library newspaper collection at Colindale. For their part in the production of the book, my thanks go to Pete Griffiths, who has overseen the production process and attended to the complexities of typesetting; City Press who have designed the cover; Roger Mann and Steve Sheen, for their help with illustrations; and to Gerald Hudd and David Pracy who have contributed their proofreading skills. Finally – Frank Foster. If I am going to be surprised, and there is a hereafter, and Frank is able to look down on me, I hope he will not be too displeased, 117