Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

6 Jack Robertson and Syd Brown were two of an unlucky generation of cricketers who lost six of what would presumably have been very productive cricketing years to war. On the other hand, however, they were fortunate to have played at a time when the County Championship was the only domestic competition and it really meant something. Players rarely changed counties and this helped foster local loyalties. 2 There were no central contracts and so supporters could usually expect to be able to watch their county’s Test players contributing fully to their side’s cause. Matches were watched by large crowds. Looking back to my first visit to Lord’s referred to above I note that, even as late as 1957, when the post- war boom in county cricket was over, according to Wisden the crowd on that June Saturday was 20,000. And of course the pair were part of the 1947 Middlesex championship-winning side. The stars of the summer were Denis Compton and Bill Edrich, and it is easy to think of Jack and Syd just paving the way for the main show. Their contribution to Middlesex’s first title for 26 years was, however, considerable. In that memorable summer they opened with a century partnership on ten occasions, but only twice were these followed by hundreds from Denis or Bill – sometimes, of course, they were away playing for England. The famous pair scored 4,290 runs in the Championship that season, but Jack and Syd contributed an impressive 3,943, albeit from considerably more innings. In all they put on a hundred or more for the Middlesex first wicket 35 times. This is some way behind the formidable record of 69 century partnerships achieved by Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe for Yorkshire. However, it is still a considerable feat exceeded by only five other opening pairs. Many of their opening partnerships were large enough to have set their side well on the way to victory before anybody else got in. The first double-century opening partnership was posted for Middlesex in 1886 (by A.J.Webbe and A.E.Stoddart) and by the end of the 1946 season there had been just 15 more. Between 1947 and 1951, however, Jack and Syd added another five, plus a 199 and a 198. 3 One of the people I spoke to in researching this book was John Neal who served with Jack on the Middlesex Youth Cricket Subcommittee and got to know him well. He had started to research a biography but when he mentioned it to the proposed subject he was told that he wasn’t happy about it being written whilst he was still alive. Among the many qualities mentioned when I spoke to people who knew Jack, or when I read about him, was modesty, and his reaction to the possibility of a biography exemplifies this attribute. John Neal would have called the biography Gentleman Jack , and his gentle, quiet nature is another recurring theme of my researches confirmed by many, including his son Ian. Writing in Jack’s 1959 benefit brochure, John Warr, his captain, aptly summed up this admirable nature of his character: ‘Perhaps his qualities of modesty, quietness, loyalty and integrity get less publicity than their more 2 Of the nine professionals who played at least ten championship matches for Middlesex in the first season after the War, seven had been born in London. 3 No fewer than fifteen of their partnerships exceeded 150. Preface