Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

the press were quite enthusiastic about prospects for 1946, though no mention was made of a certain Countesthorpe batsman returning from India. Maurice managed to up his original pay rate just a little, but his negotiating leverage was very limited; after all, he had had a poor season in 1939 and almost no track record in wartime cricket. In August 1945 he was offered £3 a week and £5 a match, but with almost a re-run of the 1939 negotiations, Mr E.W.King reported to the general committee meeting of the following month that ‘Tompkins had been on the phone.’ It was decided that he would meet the committee on 12 September at 6.30 pm, and he would be offered £4 a week and £7 a match, to bring him in line with F.T.Prentice, and just below Les Berry and George Dawkes who received a pound a match more. He accepted the revised offer which would give him an estimated salary of £390 a year, plus of course his train fares. Together with the other players on this salary bracket, he became a capped player from this point, though there was no formal ceremony. Now a married man, talented cricketer though he was, it is hard to think that he would have many other options. In September 1945 he had not yet signed for a professional football team, and after several years spent away from home, his main concern as a home-loving family-centred person would have been to remain as near to his home village as possible. As a comparison, it is perhaps worth pointing out that a Yorkshire capped cricketer could have earned £344 in 1939 and £525 in 1946. Other players were signed over the winter: Tony Riddington, also from Countesthorpe, in November, and the Australians Vic Jackson and Jack Walsh in March. A significant problem existed with the wicketkeeping position. As his salary suggests, the club were desperate to retain the services of George Dawkes, but he was still in the Royal Air Force. In early April, Paddy Corrall, Dawkes’ predecessor behind the stumps, agreed a three-year contract. The club were at least in a position to field eleven competent players for the championship season. An amateur captain proved a more difficult problem. The captains in 1945 were Aubrey Sharp, older even than Armstrong; and Alf Broughton, only just 40, but never a good enough cricketer to warrant his place in the side even when younger. Arthur Hazlerigg, the 1934 captain, was asked, but declined the offer. In the absence of anyone else, Les Berry was appointed for the first match, and then later on in May for the whole season. The Leicester Mercury got excited about this, and suggested that the club might do as well as when the last professional was appointed captain, reflecting on Ewart Astill’s success in 1935. The secretary in 1939, Captain J.E.M Skinner, had walked out at the outbreak of war, never to be seen again. During the war, C.J.B.Wood held the fort. Since his time as a player in the early days of the twentieth century, Wood had officially been an ‘assistant secretary’. This role allowed him to play as an amateur. He was paid a small salary, travelling expenses War and Peace, 1940 to 1949 47