Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

99 The later years (1889-1904) commented that: writing isn’t much in my line; but I want to make all cricketers use both hands in fielding...It’s the making of a bowler to be able to field on either side of him, as I have often told our county players. A short time later, Holmes reported that a publisher had been in touch with him asking for Emmett’s address. Perhaps backtracking a bit, Holmes commented that he was not sure Emmett could be tempted. Such a book would no doubt have been worth reading, but, although his letters are in lucid prose, Emmett seems to have been more a man to tell his stories out loud. Holmes clearly enjoyed his times with the former cricketer, reporting in 1893 that he and Emmett had smoked cigars in his ‘den’ and discussed Yorkshire’s progress towards the championship title, emphasising that the old player ‘knows a thing or two.’ At this time, Emmett claimed that he had been working harder at cricket than ever, and was all the better for it. He said he was ‘as hard as nails, carrying not an ounce of waste flesh, able to count every rib if I set about the job.’ He added that the cricketers he had known had tended to over- eat, rather than over-drink. The same summer, Emmett was at The Oval for the Surrey v Nottinghamshire match, where Holmes again enjoyed his company, congratulating him on the performance of his Rugby side at Lord’s. Emmett though complained that ‘They got at my pet boy in the pavilion, told him to play carefully, which he did, and he took an hour to get 3 runs when (and there was the old twinkle in his eye) he ought to have got nearer 300 in that time.’ As ever, Emmett was a perfectionist, and expressed very clearly how much he preferred batsmen to play with a sense of urgency. For the summer of 1894, two additional professionals joined Emmett in his coaching duties at Rugby, in retrospect possibly a sign that he was struggling with the demands of the job, although he was clearly responsible for supervising them. He took six wickets in an innings in an early season game in Rugby, five wickets for the Rugby School Servants in August, and then eight wickets against Lutterworth for the same side in September. He was also mentioned in verse in a volume of poems on cricket dedicated to Rugby boys, one line reading that ‘Tom Emmett will chaff ev’ry chap in the team – Jolly old Brick!’. There are a number of Emmett stories from this period. One was relayed in a column in Athletic News . According to the story, the bells of a church near Rugby School got on Emmett’s nerves so much that he wrote a note to the vicar which said, ‘Mr Emmett presents his compliments to the Rev. Mr ____, and would be much obliged if he would stop the bells chiming on cricket match days, because he and the other umpire can’t hear catches at the wicket while the noise is going on.’ Pelham Warner also recalled a match the school played against Free Foresters, when a batsman got sawdust in his eye. The light being poor, Emmett demonstrated cool nerves, struck a match and held it very close to the player’s eye, and, with the aid of a handkerchief in his other hand, extracted it. 67