Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

104 Rebuilding somebody to step up and score some runs. In reply to the home side’s 312 Middlesex made a bad start, losing Thompson for a duck. The wicket-taker was 43-year-old Bill Voce who had retired in 1947 but occasionally still turned out for the county in times of need. Voce would be unfit to bowl in the second innings and Thompson thus had the distinction of being the last of Voce’s 1,558 first-class wickets in a career that had started 25 years before. Off-driving powerfully, Syd hit 23 boundaries in making 123 in just over three hours, but although Middlesex eventually achieved a first- innings lead, the match petered out into a draw. Although Syd made two double-centuries in his career, and 1952 had not been one of his best seasons, he would later say that the innings he looked back on with greatest pride was his 86 not out against Hampshire at Lord’s at the end of June. Middlesex had been left 197 to win on the last afternoon at 90 runs an hour. Middlesex accepted the challenge but, against an attack led by Shackleton and Cannings, half the side, including Compton and Edrich, went for 90 and a Hampshire victory seemed the most likely outcome. However, Syd, who had gone in when the fourth wicket fell, had other ideas, scoring 86 undefeated out of the last 126 runs to see his side to a three-wicket victory. When Sims joined him at the fall of the seventh wicket 46 were needed. Pulling and driving powerfully, Syd scored all but four of them and ensured that his county maintained their challenge at the top of the table. He was in for little over an hour and, given a few more minutes batting, would have scored the fastest century of the season. 144 Off the field, efforts were made to revitalise the running of the Middlesex county club, separating it more clearly from the MCC. Their position as tenants at Lord’s had always been limiting. However, they now entered into a new agreement with MCC which, for the first time, allowed for separate staff in their own office. Another major change was that J.W.Hearne was appointed the county’s coach with Sims as his deputy. The success of Jack’s benefit had enabled him to give thought to his future after cricket. In November he sold his house in Netheravon Road and bought a small hotel in Perranporth, a small town on the north coast of Cornwall, and home at the time of Winston Graham, author of the famous Poldark novels. In the nineteenth century it had been a tin-mining village, but was now a family resort with miles of golden sands. The hotel was called Glenserth, but the family renamed it Golden Sands. The intention was that he would run it full-time when he retired. However, the pattern for the next few years whilst he was still playing cricket was that he stayed with his parents in Chiswick during the summer before coming down to join Joyce and Ian when the season finished. This was obviously not an ideal arrangement, but professional sport, of whatever sort, has always made considerable demands on family life. Players sometimes came down to the hotel for gentle early-season training, or even a honeymoon! Jack didn’t drink much, usually a social cider or white wine, and according to 144 Which, remarkably, was made in an hour and a half, by Essex amateur Colin Griffiths at Tunbridge Wells. Batting at No.9, it was the only century of his 27-match first-class career.