Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

42 Being a professional ball up, cool as you like. I was lucky to have people capable of such brilliance in the team, as all the bowlers were. Travel around the country at that time was arduous and time-consuming. Jackson and Gladwin, as befitted their status, were among the first in the team to buy cars, but for most, travel was a case of jumping on a bus or a train, especially to away matches. When he was one of the junior players, Edwin was tasked with ensuring that the player’s cricket gear got to the ground for away fixtures. We all used to meet at the station and one of the junior members of the side would have picked up the tickets from Mr Taylor, the secretary. Once there, our job was to load all the cricket bags and anything the players didn’t want with them on to trolleys, then get these to the right platform and then on to the train. Once we were on board we would relax and there would be a few card schools going. When we got to the other end, we had to get everything off the train, back on to trolleys and then sort taxis – some for the players and at least one, sometimes two, for the equipment. You had to keep your wits about you, but I only remember things being messed up once. We were coming back from a game up north and we got the bags on the guard’s van of the train. I told Derek Morgan that I would be jumping off at Chesterfield and would pick them up the next morning at Derby, if he got them off at the other end. What we didn’t know was that they had changed the guard’s van to a Birmingham train! We had to go down to the station the next morning, wait for the Birmingham train to arrive and unload the bags into taxis, then go to the ground where we were playing. There wasn’t much time to spare. Arnold had a big van for a while, which he used for his winter job. That made life a lot easier for the young players, but there were times when he wasn’t allowed to drive a long distance and the part-time porter work began again! If they got there in good time, the players would have an evening meal at the hotel. If the transport plans went awry and they arrived too late, they would go to a local Berni Inn for a steak, always a favourite. When they were in London, a group would always head to the cinema at Marble Arch and wherever they went, nothing was done to excess, as Edwin explains. Going out for a drink was exactly that ... one drink. Cliff made sure of that and made a point of telling us ‘You have ONE’, holding up a finger to reinforce the point. No one ever crossed him, they wouldn’t have dared, because he was a big man. None of them were big drinkers, to be honest and I only drank a milk stout until I was about 26. I’d nurse a half pint all night, the others might take a pint, but we were always in bed by eleven. Always.