Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

Chapter Three Leicestershire debut, 1938 and 1939 At the end of the 1937 season, when Leicestershire decided on their professionals list for 1938, Maurice was not one of the players automatically signed up. Following the financial crisis at the beginning of 1937 – being close to insolvency has been the usual state of the county club – a Nursery for young players was set up as one of the action points. The club was now happy that this was working well and was looking to recruit more young players to join it. In February 1938, a selection committee member, Mr Brankin Frisby, undertook to see Mr Hackett regarding the possibility of engaging ‘Tompkins’ in the Nursery. The following month, Mr Brankin Frisby reported back that he had seen ‘Tompkins’ who had accepted a 20-week engagement at £2 a week in the Nursery. If he played First XI matches, he would receive a £5 match fee. He would also be eligible for any talent money being paid out. The Leicestershire team which Maurice joined in the spring of 1938 was in transition. For thirty years, the mainstays had been Astill and Geary, but this was changing. Ewart Astill was now coach and Second XI captain, and George Geary was in his last season, playing mainly as a batsman, before taking up coaching duties at Charterhouse School. Ewart Astill had been appointed to oversee the activities of the Nursery, which he did in a relaxed and informal way, at times too informally for the committee. For most of the 1930s the club had not been able to afford much in the way of junior cricket. From the peak of winning the Minor Counties Championship under Aubrey Sharp in 1931, their Second XI programme had been reduced after 1932 to playing just the neighbouring counties in one-day matches (generally Northamptonshire) and two-day matches (Notts, Derbyshire and Warwickshire) and a succession of Club and Ground fixtures in local towns against players from the district. Maurice, as a 19-year-old, joined the Nursery with the other young players who had not yet established themselves in the first team. The senior playing staff comprised Norman Armstrong (aged 45), Haydon Smith (37), Les Berry (32) and the recently arrived Frank Prentice (26) and George Watson (31). The New Zealand batsman Stewie Dempster was in his final year as captain. Astill and Geary were still registered players, but Astill was now 50, and Geary 45. The players trying to establish their places were Laurie Thursting (22), Bill Flamson (34), Jim Sperry (28), Gerry Lester (22), George Knew (17) and George Dawkes (17). The other members of the 20