LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

11 Early Years in Staffordshire Vivian’s personal figures for the first eleven for all the seasons from 1903 to 1912 — records and averages for the 1913 and 1914 seasons have not survived — showed that he played in 199 matches and scored 4,069 runs at an average of 25.18. He also took 370 wickets at an average of 10.00. He played occasionally as an amateur for Staffordshire in the Minor Counties Championship alongside the great Sydney Barnes, and on one memorable occasion against Cheshire carried his bat against the hostile bowling of Walter Brearley. Vernon Robins played in 83 matches for the Stafford first eleven and scored 931 runs at an average of 13.50; Veral Robins played in 25 matches for the first eleven. Going to watch their father and both uncles playing at The Hough, where the cricket ground was a short walking distance from their grandparents’ home, would soon be an introduction to the world of cricket for young Walter and his brother. Another important influence at the time adding even more to Walter’s growing interest in the game was the discovery of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack . Writing in The Cricketer Winter Annual in 1967 he remembered spending time in his grandfather’s house in Lichfield Street one weekend in 1912. While Harry Robins dozed in his armchair Walter’s attention was caught by a small, pale yellow book on the bookshelves. He was fascinated by its contents and, careful not to disturb the sleeping owner, ‘borrowed’ the book and took it home, where he spent every spare minute reading it from cover to cover. Returning the book the following weekend he discovered all the other Wisdens in Harry’s collection and, one, by one, he ‘borrowed’ them all, eventually with permission once his grandparent realised what was happening. That early introduction to the importance of the preservation of cricket history stayed with him for the rest of his life and in due course he inherited Harry’s complete set of Wisden almanacks, when halfway through his second reading of the collection, in 1932. The outbreak of the Great War in 1914 changed everything for everyone, including the Robins family. The Army immediately recognised the value of the skills of a telegraph technician and Vivian was soon in uniform. He was not sent to the fields of Flanders but to East Africa where news of the movements of German colonial forces needed to be communicated quickly and accurately by telegraph so that an appropriate response could be organised. The young Walter had begun to attend King Edward VI Grammar School, where the headmaster was Ernest Ormsby Powell, a Hampshire county cricketer in the 1880s with a first-class century to his name, 140 against Somerset. Powell had been a member of Stafford Cricket Club since Vivian’s earliest days in 1902, serving on the committee and chairing meetings as well as playing an occasional match and ensuring that the club’s lease on the ground was renewed every five years. He immediately recognised the sporting talents of Walter who appeared to have inherited his father’s football skills as well as his cricket ability. Vivian had played every winter for Stafford Rangers and had trials for West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa as a young man. With Powell’s encouragement, young Walter played