LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

43 given 37 and White 28. Robbie played no first-class cricket in August but he did take time off work to travel south to play a few games for East Molesey. He actually headed both batting and bowling averages for the club that season, closely followed by his father in both categories. MCC were sending a team to tour South Africa that winter and Percy Chapman, who had lost the captaincy of England against Australia for the Fifth Test at The Oval a few weeks earlier, was reinstated as captain for the tour which could explain why the team included White, Tyldesley and Peebles but not Robbie. However, if Robbie had been invited by MCC he might have declined the opportunity, believing that his time would be put to better use if he concentrated on his career in Nottingham and enjoying more football with the Corinthians. It might have been fun to spend a few months in South Africa with his friend Ian Peebles, always assuming that his fiancée Kathleen, who would be studying and revising for her LRAM examinations, had given her approval! The football season would begin in less than a month and Robbie would be able to spend Saturdays at Crystal Palace and other football grounds, as part of well-earned weekend breaks from his total five days a week commitment to the marketing and advertising of the products and services of the Nottingham Furnishing Company. And after celebrating Kathleen’s examination success, there was the wedding of his elder sister to ‘Pip’ Piper, his old University football team-mate, to look forward to. Test Match Debut Robbie and Kathleen in London at the time of their engagement.