Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

9 Introduction high quality cricket; although it was still an age in which elevens raised by wealthy or prestigious individuals might secure fixtures against touring sides, these were usually played at established venues with reasonable links to public transport, not in a remote, tiny village in the middle of the countryside of a minor county which was itself geographically isolated. Much more likely is the theory advanced in chapter three that Lionel and his business partner, Bill Clark, bought the estate at Old Buckenham with the primary purpose of setting up their stud farm, which was well-sited to interact with the headquarters of British racing at Newmarket and that Lionel’s cricket began as a sideshow. Third, it assumes that, when Robinson’s attention was finally turned to high quality cricket, his goal was solely to attract a visit to Old Buckenham by an Australian touring eleven and fails to consider the hypothesis presented in the foreword by Tom Walshe that he had bigger fish to fry and may have wished to become a significant mover-and-shaker in the world of English cricket. Whilst the facts about Lionel’s intention to rub shoulders with the MCC in the corridors of power may never be fully discovered, the truth, that there was no grand, long-term plan can be found tucked away in an article entitled “Country House Cricket”, published in The Cricketer in 1932. Written by Evelyn Metcalfe, who played frequently for Robinson’s teams, it makes it clear that Robinson was already installed as lord of the manor in Old Buckenham and was busy encouraging the village team when Metcalfe himself suggested that he should have a “good cricket ground” created on the estate 1 . Even then, the prospect of attracting visiting tourists of Test status does not seem to have arisen immediately, growing instead out of Robinson’s success as an extremely generous host of country house matches. Cricketers from the dominions were made especially welcome at these; one source stating that ‘there are many Australian cricketers who will remember as one of the outstanding events of their tour of this country the fine hospitality they enjoyed at Old Buckenham Hall, where Lionel Robinson loved to entertain them’. Lionel himself was a player of extremely limited ability 2 and was happy to play for the village side (he batted in the ‘tail’ and did not bowl), and his take-over of cricket in Old Buckenham was a gradual affair; he brought in both cricketers of note and also cronies of his from the world of finance who had some cricketing ability and the locals were frozen out when Robinson took Metcalfe’s advice and funded the construction of his splendid new ground; the villagers had to continue playing on their old ground and their team disappears from view in 1912. (Ironically, Robinson also froze himself out as a player for, although he was just about worth his weight as a village cricketer, he was not good enough to play in his own elevens.) A good deal of confusion in the nomenclature of the elevens playing under Robinson’s name (see Appendix) has obscured the picture but the basic facts are clear: within three years of playing village cricket 1 Metcalfe was so keen to take credit for the concept of Lionel’s ground that he repeated his claim in The Cricketer more or less word-for-word ten years later. 2 The Cricketer puts it bluntly, stating that: “he never gained any fame as a player...”