Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

57 Chapter Ten Champions The following year was even better for Jack and Syd, and for Middlesex, who won the Championship in brilliant style in the second season after the resumption, just as they had after the First World War. The year didn’t begin well; down under, England were beaten 3-0 by an Australian team that was developing into one of the strongest Test sides ever. Middlesex supporters, though, would at least have been heartened by the performances of Compton and Edrich who each made over 400 runs against a powerful attack led by Lindwall and Miller. Back home the country experienced one if its most brutal winters as Britain was paralysed by heavy snow. Transport links were cut, villages marooned, coal supplies ran out making power cuts necessary, and schools and public buildings were closed. To prolong the agony, a sudden thaw in the middle of March then brought devastating flooding. And all this at a time that, while there was still a feeling of relief that the war was over, people continued to struggle under the depressing yoke of post-war austerity and all its consequent restrictions and privations, especially food rationing. Yet 1947 is now looked back on, at least by older cricket fans, as a golden year, largely because of the record-breaking exploits of the dashing Denis Compton and his pal Bill Edrich, Test victories against Alan Melville’s popular South African side, and an exciting tussle at the top of the Championship played out before huge crowds in a gloriously hot (if you like that sort of thing) and sunny August, and won, in the main, by Middlesex’s dazzling batting. Walter Robins’ plan was simple: score runs quickly so that a modest attack had as much time as possible to dismiss the opposition. And they certainly had the batsmen to carry out the plan with Jack and Syd attacking from the start, leaving Compton and Edrich to do their worst. The crowds loved it: the average attendance for championship matches at Lord’s was 23,400 and, in the words of David Lemmon, who was 16 at the time, writing some years later: To be alive and eager in North London in 1947 meant following every moment [sic] that Middlesex made. The news of their doings was spread as if by jungle telegraph through Enfield, Southgate, Palmer’s Green, Ealing, Uxbridge and Hounslow … . Perhaps the most remarkable game was at Grace Road, Leicester where 663 runs were scored on the second day and Middlesex eventually achieved the feat of scoring 66 runs to win in the 25 minutes left to them, with Jack and Leslie Compton padded up behind the sightscreen waiting to go in if Edrich and Leslie’s little brother didn’t do the business. They weren’t needed. Even with fielders ringing the boundary seven overs was enough.