Lives in Cricket No 39 - Alec Watson

the photograph it can be seen as an impressive home for a man who had spent his youth in an overcrowded, verminous tenement in Coatbridge. Scores and Biographies , Volume XIII , tells us that Alec’s nickname was Sandy, and that he was ‘a civil, hard-working and zealous cricketer, and a great favourite’; and the above seems to bear that out. Much of Haygarth’s information on Watson seems to have been based on that in Lillywhite’s Annual , including the wrong date of birth; which appears also to have been copied by other sources. Watson, apparently an affable fellow, seems to have had a good relationship with the media, both with regard to his play on the field, and to its possibilities for publicising his sports emporium. Cricket devoted a long article to him on 30 April, 1885, just before his benefit match, and he gave ‘interviews’ to the Athletic Journal for 9 August, 1887, and the Cricket Field for 10 August, 1892, which among other things reveal that side of his character. Even so, in his obituary Thompson refers to Alec as ‘a more unassuming man you could not find’; and he also notes that his temperament was as equable as that of some of his colleagues was excitable. Bearshaw also reinforced Haygarth’s comment on Watson. Lillywhite’s Annual gives his height as five feet six and one quarter inches precisely, and is consistent in that over the years. However, it variously gives his weight as ten stones and ten stones seven pounds. Possibly his weight did vary a little as time passed. Probably such information came from the cricketer himself. Also varying seems to have been his Scots accent. In 1887 the Athletic Journal has him saying that he came ‘fra Glasca’, but the Cricket Field interview of 1892, as we have seen, has someone recognising his accent as Lancastrian. No doubt he would resume a Scots persona when he visited relatives in Scotland. We know little about his interests outside cricket, but Alec seems to have been a frequent visitor to Haydock Park, and presumably other racecourses in Lancashire. At any rate it looks as if he remained as active in retirement as he had been on the field of play. Photographs of Watson, admittedly in his later years, show him to have been a well-dressed cricketer. The Athletic Journal article refers to him taking off his hat and revealing his ‘noble forehead’; which is really a euphemism for fact that the 42 years old Watson was balding a bit. In My Own Red Roses Hodcroft notes that Lancashire team photographs show Watson looking melancholy, perhaps due to taking his cricket seriously, and that between 1879 Beyond First-Class Cricket 91