Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

Harold Larwood, Bill Voce, Joe Hardstaff, George Gunn and his elder son G.V., he top-scored with a ‘fearless 46’ out of a team total of 129. At the end of June, he scored 89 not out for Nomads against Kettering. Simon Dee, in the Leicester Mercury , wrote: ‘Tompkins is one of the most promising young cricketers in the county. Well, Leicestershire will be glad of Maurice’s services later on if only he can maintain form.’ During July he played twice for the county Second XI against Northamptonshire seconds in one-day matches. The first, at Aylestone Road, was abandoned before he had a chance to bat, and in the away match at Northampton he scored just 2 in a rather dismal defeat by 158 runs, with Leicestershire bowled out for just 77. The Northamptonshire side included Percy Davis and Dennis Brookes; the Leicestershire team was a mixture of very young players (Gerry Lester and George Dawkes were also playing), together with three senior members of the club – the secretary, Lt Cdr A.G.G.Webb, who was probably captain; F.S.Smith, later club chairman and father of B.A.F.Smith, club president during the halcyon days of the 1990s; and Bobby Barr, the international rugby player who also played cricket for the Ivanhoe. For Club and Ground matches, the club’s selection policy was to play any members of the ground or Nursery staff who were not playing first-eleven matches, followed by any available amateurs. Commander Webb, though a competent cricketer, would only play if the side were short at the last minute. Perhaps encouraged by his selection, it was the following week that he played his most spectacular innings to date. Playing for Nomads once again against Lenton in Nottingham, he scored an unbeaten 100 out of his side’s 182 for eight, leaving their opponents 89 for eight when time was called. Tommy Sidwell was particularly enthusiastic about the innings: ‘It included a full-blooded square cut which ended on top of one of the houses flanking the ground. A unique shot.’ Later on in the month he scored 21 for Nomads against Shipley Hall, a club based in the Ilkeston area, out of their all-out score of 81. As he was not restricted by any league cricket registration rules, he was also able, in 1936, to score 140 for Leicester Ivanhoe against Coventry and North Warwickshire, and in the following year he played nine innings for Ivanhoe’s extra firsts, with a top score of 61. But as the Ivanhoe history states, ‘he was not considered to be an Ivanhoe cricketer,’ because he truly belonged to the Nomads. The Ivanhoe did have a better fixture list, but certainly the ‘Hackett connection’ meant that he would have no difficulty playing for them as and when circumstances made this a good thing to do. A further development in 1937 was that Leicester Ivanhoe started playing some of their matches at Bosworth Park, the seat of Sir Wolstan Dixie, which, as far back as 1882, had hosted two ‘odds’ matches against the United All-England Eleven, which on one occasion included W.G.Grace in their team. Learning the game 17