LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

46 Cahn and the side were delightful to us. Cricket at Loughboro’ Road was good fun and the wives sat in old-fashioned chairs with tops like a sentry box, very warm and draught free. Better even was cricket at Stanford Hall, where the hospitality was unlimited and the weather always seemed to be fine. Lunch and tea were served in a large marquee with wonderful food and all manner of drinks, also one could swim or play a few holes of golf if the cricket was dull, which it rarely was. There was only a two-week break before the start of the football season. Robbie was a regular in the Corinthians’ team for the first thirteen matches. In their first year as a married couple, Robbie and Kathleen were determined to be at both the Knight and Robins Christmas festivities. This meant no football for Robbie for 14 days but he did manage to get down to the South Coast on 28 December to play against Brighton and Hove Albion and on New Year’s Eve played a part in the 2-1 defeat of Clapton Orient. He played in another eight games and then went on the Corinthians’ Easter tour to Ireland. He was back in England by the beginning of April but for him the season was over as he concentrated on office work until the start of the 1932 cricket season. His usual agreement with Sir Julien Cahn continued and he was free to take leave of absence from office duties and play first-class cricket throughout May and June. This suited Warner and the England selectors very well, as it meant that Robbie would be prepared for the only Test of the season, against ‘All-India’. After the opening game for MCC against Yorkshire, the previous season’s champions, in which he took five for 61 in their only innings, he played four more games for Middlesex before Jardine was pleased to welcome him back into his bowling line-up against the Indians at Lord‘s. But in this Test it was Robbie’s batting that impressed, not because of the number of runs he scored, 21 and 30, but because of the support he gave to Ames in a 63-run seventh-wicket stand in the first innings and in the second, a 53-run stand, also for the seventh wicket, this time with Paynter. There was still time for one more game in the south, at Tunbridge Wells where he took six for 45 in Kent’s first innings and gave every indication that, if he had been free to carry on playing for Middlesex, he would have been certain to have taken 100 first-class wickets in a season for the second time. But Robbie was not back in Nottingham for long before he and Kathleen were off with Sir Julien once again on a five-day tour of Denmark. Meanwhile, Warner and the selectors were busy trying to put a balanced team together for Jardine to take to Australia and New Zealand for the MCC winter tour and the Ashes series. At the beginning of August, Robbie received his invitation but the selection could not have come at a more inconvenient time. Kathleen had just announced that they were expecting their first child which was due to arrive early in March 1933, several weeks before the MCC tourists would arrive back in England. Obviously, the invitation had to be turned down, although Sir Julien Cahn had come forward with the suggestion that Robbie could go for part of the tour and return early at Sir Julien’s expense. MCC did not give Robbie that option Part-Time Cricket