Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

111 Chapter Nineteen An impossible task It would be wrong to say that Edwin took over as Derbyshire coach when the club was at its lowest ebb. After all, the side of 1920 had lost all but one of its 18 matches, the other rained off without a ball bowled. Yet there was little to shout about for the Derbyshire faithful during another dark period in the club’s history. Having finished bottom of the table in 1971 and 1972, they were again in 1974 and only avoided last place by one point in 1973. The side was not without talent. Mike Page remained a vastly underrated batsman and Bob Taylor was almost without peer as a wicket-keeper, maintaining standards of excellence that would have been impressive in a good side, even more meritorious in one struggling like Derbyshire. Taylor’s undemonstrative glove work earned wickets that at times were not deserved, made the awkward look routine and made the fielding side look better than at times they were. His batting developed only into that of a useful tail-ender, meaning that the better-equipped Alan Knott at Kent kept him from the England side, but most good judges gave the Derbyshire man the edge behind the stumps. Yet the rest of the side was woefully inexperienced and 1972, Edwin’s first as coach, saw Derbyshire win only one Championship match. Alan Ward and Peter Eyre bowled only 260 overs between them and the latter retired at the end of the season. John Harvey, a solid middle order batsman since 1963, had a bad one at the wrong time and was released, while Ian Buxton decided he could do no more and resigned his post in early August. Ian Hall also retired and, with the loss of Peter Gibbs, the club was in crisis. For Edwin, the writing was on the wall from an early stage. When I took over as coach, the first job had to be to get the indoor school into some sort of shape. There was no real heating, only a wood burning stove in the corner, while the floor was covered in bird droppings. My wife and I spent hours scrubbing the floor and then I replaced all the windows myself and got the money back from the club. Major Carr, the club secretary, gave me a tenner for doing the work myself and saving them a bob or two. With the place being so cold, the moisture used to seep up through the floor and there were times when we had to put down sawdust, so bowlers and batsmen didn’t slip. One night I had to cancel the practice, as it was so wet and Major Carr was concerned we could have a serious injury.