Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

joined up became academic when on 12 August 1915 he was motor-cycling in Barbourne Road, Worcester, at the time the town’s main exit for anyone wishing to travel by road to Birmingham. In order to avoid a collision with an electric lamp standard – another version suggests it was an electric tram – he crashed to the ground so heavily that he received a compound fracture of the lower right leg. He was attended by a medical officer from the Voluntary Aid Detachment and taken home by car. This sounds extraordinary since, according to his family, only the fact that he was a young and physically fit sportsman stopped his foot being amputated. In any event his career in major cricket was over. 55 Naturally there were many visitors to his home, and one of those was Margaret, young daughter of R.V.Ryder. She said how thrilled she was when her father took her along to Foster’s bedside: ‘When the talk was finished and we moved to leave, Mr Foster called me back and gave me a box of chocolates.’ The minutes of a the County Club’s committee for 9 September expressed sympathy and ordered a letter to be sent, hoping he would soon resume his activities. There was never a hope. Foster’s accident and dire injuries did seem to have an upside. On 13 October 1915, at St Agnes Church, Moseley, he married Norah Gladys Pritchard, a 25-year-old nurse from a Welsh family. Her address was given as Mel Valley, the same as her groom and his family. She certainly nursed him through his injuries but it has not been established whether they were known to each other previously. The marriage was not to last, but did produce three children David William, John Pritchard and Elizabeth (‘Tiz’). 56 Foster knew his first-class career was over when, in January 1919, he suggested to the County Club that he be made team manager at a salary of £1,000 per year. The idea was not adopted and the following month it was announced that due to his foot injury he would be unable to play. His resignation as captain was accepted by the committee ‘with regret’ but he was appointed to a committee vacancy. The appointment, though on the face of it justified, was not a success. A classic case of an ‘absentee’ committee member, and so far as can be ascertained no official regret was expressed when he resigned his seat on 18 July 1922. This talented, impulsive, effervescent man was never likely to be happy on a committee; as his life and mental health began to collapse, things would have become impossible. He ought never to have been there in the first place, but got out at the right time. Despite now having no active role, Foster was still highly regarded and in 1926 he was offered, and accepted, an honorary life membership. Despite Foster’s inaction on the Warwicks committee he was still remembered and highly regarded in the cricket world at large. Why else 92 War and the 1920s 55 A legend exists that, for many years afterwards, the wreck of the motor cycle was displayed somewhere in the Chad Valley district of Birmingham. 56 See Appendix Two.