Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

Even if we make allowance for possible intervention by a ghost writer, it is a remarkable passage. Writing in the 1930s he is trying to recollect, in a singularly unbuttoned way, the intensity of his feelings – ‘joys eternal when I used to shout and play’ – when he skippered Warwicks to the Championship in the bright, Edwardian summer of 1911 (despite the weather in this particular match) more than twenty years before. At that time the Championship was a major prize in the English sporting calendar. In winning it, Warwicks had toppled the cosy cartel of the ‘big six’ counties who had won the competition every season since W.G.Grace’s outsiders, Gloucestershire, had led the field. What’s more it was his first season as appointed captain, though that achievement is not so rare. He was, at 22, the youngest captain to take the title – he remains so. He had done the double – 1,000 runs and 100 wickets – in championship matches alone; no other winning captain has done that. To judge from the tone of these particular ‘Remembrances’, he had achieved it more by collaborative means than by the traditional ‘officers and subordinates’ method of management. But he was viewing it across the wreckage of his own life. He had been injured in a road accident in 1915 and had contributed little to the convulsive efforts of the Great War. He had been pushed out of the family’s business, was separated from his wife and children, had been involved in some ‘funny stuff’ in Soho, had a serious gambling habit and was heading for bankruptcy. Now read on, please do. Warwick, thou art worthy 16 Foster’s men. The Warwickshire side which beat Northamptonshire by an innings at Northampton on 26, 28 and 29 August 1911, thus winning the Championship. Standing (l to r): C.Charlesworth, C.S.Baker, E.B.Crockford (twelfth man), E.F.Field, J.H.Parsons, S.Santall, E.J.Smith (wk). Seated: W.G.Quaife, G.W.Stephens, F.R.Foster (capt), F.G.Stephens, W.C.Hands.