Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

8 his benefit season for The Cricketer of 16 May 1953. 4 He had clearly derived much enjoyment from watching both his batting and his fielding. He concluded by saying said that, whatever happened, he ‘turns up smiling. For loyalty to his captain, his county, his team mates, in fact to cricket itself, he stands out as an example of the best type of professional cricketer.’ Like Jack, Syd obviously also appreciated the importance of looking the part. Family photographs I have seen of him show somebody who was always smartly turned out and his son Rob remembers often coming home and finding his father being measured for a new suit. As mentioned, quick runs were of paramount importance, particularly when Walter Robins was captain. Although Jack and Syd were naturally fast scorers, if they weren’t going quickly enough he wanted them to get out so that Bill Edrich and Denis Compton could get to the crease. In looking at Jack and Syd’s records it is worth noting therefore that, impressive as they are, they might have been even better if they had been able to bat more circumspectly on occasions. In order to show how they became established in the Middlesex side, what they achieved in the difficult circumstances of the war years, and their contribution to the one and a half Championships that the county won just after the war, I have deliberately covered Jack and Syd’s early cricketing years in a little more detail than the later ones. There are a few areas where I would have liked to have discovered a bit more about their lives, but the passage of time and the limitation of available information prevented this. If anybody does have any information, however, that they think significantly adds to what I have written here I would be grateful if they would contact me. Jack and Syd’s lives off the cricket field were probably less obviously remarkable and idiosyncratic than some that have been covered in the Lives in Cricket series, and certainly less so than their famous colleagues the flamboyant and oft-married Denis Compton and Bill Edrich. However, they were both talented and tough enough to earn a living in the difficult and stressful world of professional sport, to serve their country during a war at home and abroad, and to encounter and overcome major personal difficulties. To my mind that makes their lives remarkable. Locally-born Harry Lee had preceded Jack and Syd at the top of the Middlesex order with some considerable success. He had made his Middlesex debut in 1911 after five years on the Lord’s staff, and played his last match for them in 1934. He wrote an entertaining and informative autobiography. 5 In his dedication he referred to ‘the lot of most professional cricketers … . They stand for a few years in the sunshine, then retire to their small public 4 W.J.O’Reilly lived in South London. He was a regular contributor to the magazine; he had been watching cricket in England since the beginning of the century and was thus well qualified to comment on Syd’s merits. He was of course a namesake of the great Australian bowler W.J. ‘Tiger’ O’Reilly. The article includes a photograph of both Williams standing together but I am fairly certain that I have attributed authorship to the right man. 5 Lee, Harry, Forty Years of English Cricket , Clerke and Cockeran, 1948. Preface