Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

In his mid-teens Frank joined elder brother Harry with Hall Green Cricket Club, not far from the family’s home, and in 1906 he took 70 wickets and averaged 22 to win the batting prize. Next season he scored his maiden century and also played twice for Poulton while holidaying on the Lancashire coast. Against Blackpool he scored 64 and took six for 14; against a Garstang side including Lancashire players Joe and Alex Eccles he made ten and took four for 10. Back in Birmingham, he played for ‘The Arcadians’, a team got up by Wilkinson and Riddell, Frank’s employers, who traded in Great Western Arcade, Birmingham. His figures of nine for nine against ‘The Rest of the Warehouse’ won Frank a bat from C.S.Riddell, one of the partners. His abilities were becoming known, and at Whitsun 1908, Joe Phillips 24 was told to include him in Warwicks’ Second Eleven game with Worcestershire. Secretary R.V.Ryder informed Phillips: ‘This boy slings them down left-handed. 25 Give him a trial and see what you think of him. He’s no bat.’ Foster took five for 25 and two for 19, and, going in last, scored a quickfire unbeaten 51, adding more than 100 for the last wicket with A.J.Woodward. 26 Early Years 23 24 Joe Phillips, a colliery manager and occasional amateur player and skipper for Warwicks, became, years after his death the first grandfather-in-law of H.R.H. Princess Anne, and great-grandfather of champion horsewoman Zara Phillips. 25 Fred Root, a fellow leg-theorist, writing in 1937, described his bowling action as ‘loose-limbed’ and ‘care-free’. He thought him a ‘holy terror’ because he frequently hit batsmen on ‘the tender part of the thigh’. 26 The unfortunate Woodward was chosen for Warwicks’ first-team home fixture with Leicestershire later in the season. It was rained off and he never played first-class cricket.