a bad patch at the time with my batting and when we came up against a weak side from the City of London school, I failed to follow the normal tradition of giving your wicket away, preferably in a suitably subtle manner, on reaching fifty. I went on to make a hundred instead, and after leaving the field to stony silence I was taken to one side by Len and given a fearful ear-bashing. His attitude antagonised me no end but, to be fair to him, he did tell my parents that he was surprised I was not being called back to play for Somerset seconds during that year.
Harry Sharp, nicknamed the ‘admiral’ because he had been an able seaman during the war and who became the Middlesex scorer when he packed up coaching, was different and I always made a point of keeping in touch with him. He would stand behind the net when I was batting, with half a fag stuck behind his ear, and deliver his verdict.
‘Bloody awful shot, Botham … but if you keep hitting it son, you keep playing it.’
The £12 weekly wage did not go far after rent and bills. We were paid on Thursday and by Sunday would be broke. So to stay alive, we got up to the usual tricks like jumping the barriers on the tube, and we soon developed a few key dodges to supplement our meagre income. We never got involved in anything seriously criminal, it was more of an initiative test. One of these, the Great Seat Cushion Scam, was our chief money-maker. It worked like this: Step One – arrive at the ground early. Step Two – divert a number of seat cushions, say 50 to 100 from the normal selling positions to the little booths where we worked selling scorecards. Step Three – when handing over a scorecard to spectators arriving at the ground, offer cushions at 5p rather than the normal 10p hire charge. Call me Al Capone.
The cushiest number was delivering updated scorecards to the offices all around the ground. That meant constant access to the pavilion, and more importantly, to the kitchens where the ‘legendary’ Nancy Doyle would slip us poor starving waifs the odd bacon butty. Rodney and I even found a way to make some spending money while gargling at the same time. Working behind the Tavern Bar during match days offered excellent opportunities for spirits, not to mention pints, of free enterprise. Basically the trick was that whenever a group of businessmen arrived we made sure they received our undivided attention. Slowly but surely they ended up paying a bit more for each round of drinks, and, of course, the more they imbibed the less they cared. Needless to say, offers of ‘and one for yourself’ were never knowingly refused. After a couple of hours of this we would be staggering around the place, parrot-faced, making a complete cock-up of the orders and ringing up totals that bore absolutely no resemblance to the actual cost of the drinks. When this exercise in creative accounting was performed once too often, Rod and I were given a new order – of the boot.
Another potential opportunity for cash prizes was the job of bowling at MCC members in the nets. The ones we targeted for special treatment were known as the ‘Jazz Hats’. These were the flash harrys who turned up in their sports cars with all the latest gear that always looked fresh out of the wrapper. The call would come through, Bill Jones would ask the name of the member and if he decided the man in question was not a big enough tipper for him to bother with, he would delegate accordingly.
The method for finding out what kind of tip you might pick up was tried and trusted. After bowling for five minutes or so and supplying a comfortable number of half-volleys, it would be time to adjust your aim towards the thigh pocket. If you heard the tell-tale jingle of change, there was not much point in continuing the drudgery for too long and it was the signal to start bringing the session to a close with a few quicker deliveries. If you heard no sound at all, there were two possibilities. You were either breaking your back for a tight bastard who carried nothing, or a gent who carried only notes. As you didn’t want to risk missing out on the latter, a lot of players who barely knew which end of a bat to pick up suddenly found themselves middling the ball like world-beaters, hearing exclamations of wonder at their superb strokeplay and astonishment that they were not representing their county at the very least. If the fellow in question turned out to have short arms and deep pockets, however, the next time he turned up it would be open warfare.
The groundstaff team was known as the Nippers, and whenever we played away we would make sure to feed well during the tea interval. It was comical to watch the lads stuffing chicken legs, vol-au-vents, sandwiches, pork pies and anything else they could lay their hands on into their kit bags. The only thing you had to make sure of was clearing out the bag from time to time; sweaty jockstraps and rotting pork pies often made a potent combination. The matches were taken reasonably seriously, but if the opposition was not particularly strong everyone understood that once a decent game of cricket had been had by all, the main priority was to get to the bar as soon as possible. For the home matches we were aided and abetted by an umpire called John Collins. You could tell when the pub doors were opening because his decisions would become more and more outrageous. As the shadows lengthened, any appeals for caught behind or lbw became a mere formality.
By and large I managed to keep out of big trouble during my time at Lord’s. The nearest I came to it was an incident involving a water jug and one of the juniors, a lad called Anwar Muhammad who was a cousin or nephew, I can’t recall which, of the Pakistan Test player Younis Ahmed. It was a wet, miserable day and I decided the dressing room boredom needed to be lifted with a bit of horseplay. I picked up the jug intending to give the lad a soaking and as I went to throw the water, the handle came clean away and the whole thing shattered. Anwar Muhammad nearly lost a finger and I was cut around the wrist. There was blood everywhere and an ambulance was called for. I think it was only the seriousness of the injuries that saved us from strife.
The pleas of ‘accident’, however, failed to save Onty and me from being evicted from our digs. The landlady was a classic of the genre, with big thick glasses through which she was not inclined to see the funny side. She scared me witless. The problem arose during one of our regular games of football in the passageway when Rodney let fly with a magnificent unstoppable volley. Dipping and swerving at the last minute, it smashed through the window and into the road outside. Enter the Dragon.
We were well behind with the rent and had received several warnings, so it was bags-in-the-street time. Luckily, it was near the end of the season so we were able to doss down on the floor of some friends and then, once we had outstayed our welcome, we had to resort to sleeping at the ground. Security was minimal so we managed to sneak in and kip in the baths in the juniors’ changing rooms.
At this stage little thought was given to the possible consequences of our actions. Although the cricket was taken seriously, we were living for the moment without a care in the world. Soon, however, the attractions of London began to wear thin and I was glad to get away from the place. I was impatient and I wanted to break through into the county circuit.
I was due to return to Lord’s for the whole of the summer of 1973, but in the event I spent hardly any time there because during that season I became a regular in the Somerset second team.
The young players were being introduced into the senior team gradually so it was never a case of club cricketer one day, pro the next. There was a definite pecking order and the junior players had to know their place. It amazed me in later years to watch fresh-faced seventeen-year-olds march in on the first day and demand: ‘Where’s the sponsored car?’ In those days you did as you were told and kept your mouth shut. If you failed to observe this simple rule, there was every chance that one of the senior players would take it upon himself to point out the error of your ways, normally by grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and pinning you against the nearest available wall.
I made a conscious decision when I got into the first team to play the part of the dumb country boy. (Hands up those who said it shouldn’t have been difficult.) While I was perceived as such I was no bother to anyone, more a figure of fun, and it made me laugh to see some of the other youngsters getting in over their heads. I would think to myself, ‘You silly lad, you’ll pay for that sometime’, and sure enough most of them did. Because the rest of the team thought I didn’t have a brain cell in my head, there was never any danger of me
