Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

put into the shade, however, by a 26-year-old making his début in 1919: Norman Armstrong scored one and two in his single match that year before returning to the side at the age of 32 to give him 99.98% of his 19,002 runs after the age of thirty and 57.39% after forty. King, however, had prematurely the last laugh, if that is possible, by scoring 21.55% of his runs and taking 8.55% of his wickets after passing fifty. In this, the last phase of his active career, King had a new supporter, his daughter Margaret. The Aylestone Road ground being fortuitously on her route home, she would with a friend scamper the mile and a half or so from her grammar school as soon as they were let out. While they avidly watched the match, she would keep the scorebook for her friend whose job it was to do the homework. At home she would draw little pictures of her father’s fellow cricketers for his amusement. He was, however, increasingly hampered by rheumatism. Fred Root recalls an interchange between Bill Reeves, who was officiating at Aylestone Road, and King when the latter ‘appeared somewhat lame as he came in to bat’. ‘What’s the matter, John ? You look a bit wobbly’, said the umpire, to which the batsman replied, ‘Yes, William, I have a touch of rheumatism in my knees, and I get stiff when resting. I shall be all right when I get going’. Shortly afterwards Geary called for a short run and King ‘had run many yards past the wicket, and towards the pavilion, in his effort to get to the crease’, but before he had pulled up he heard ‘Keep on going while your knees are loose, boy; you were just out’. Robertson-Glasgow reports that King ‘was very angry’ at Reeves’ humour, which was always more waspish than that of Leicestershire’s more kindly Alec Skelding. 38 Although for the season of 1919 matches were limited to two days, the extended hours must have been a sore tribulation to Leicestershire’s veterans. King’s figures look poor despite him being one place above the great Maurice Tate in the national bowling averages; although it must be borne in mind that Tate was still an off-break bowler at that period. But, if one ignores his performances in his two matches against the exhilarating Australian Imperial Forces XI for Leicestershire and MCC (for whom he opened the batting against Gregory and Collins), his figures in the Championship show that his batting average was more than three runs clear of that for bowling, thus amply 96 Nestor 38 This was probably Leicestershire’s match with Yorkshire at Aylestone Road in 1922, when King was run out for 47.