drinks, their diet and nutritional advice, and a devotion to take care of themselves in their spare time, you can see how well equipped they are to combat such a schedule and environment but they are almost incomparable to our physical state back then. These days players undergo regular tests to make sure they are getting nowhere near the danger zone when it comes to hydration.
In contrast, we were frazzled and returned back home looking like pickled balloons. You see, we understood the need to get fluids on board but what we drank whenever there was a break in play – whether it be a formal drinks break, at lunch or at tea – was called a brown cow. A brown cow, would you believe, was an intriguing mixture of Coca-Cola and milk. We were necking this concoction like it had gone out of fashion at the end of every session. Put it this way, I am not sure you could call it a predecessor of Gatorade!
We simply knew no better. You only had to look at our daily routine when on county duty to see that we were technically still amateurs – certainly when comparing ourselves to the recent vintage to have come through that Old Trafford dressing room, like James Anderson – masquerading as professionals. Strength and conditioning would have amounted to an arm wrestle with your mates at the lunch table, while being careful not to knock over the beer bottles clumped in the middle.
Yes, for each home Lancashire county match, crates of Watneys Red Barrel would be emptied out at the start of the 40-minute interval and not many went back into those crates unopened at the end of it. That was a practice that carried on from the 1960s into the 1970s. Even on my Test debut, at Lord’s, I supped a pint of shandy at lunch before resuming my first international innings. Could you imagine the furore now if one of England’s top-order batters did that? It’s the same game, but the world of cricket has changed.
Our modern lads are all tied into advertising whether it be through their personal gear or team-branded stuff – logos on all their equipment, the collars of their shirts, the pockets on their trousers, all of which is designed to keep you cool in these hot climates. They even wear vests underneath to regulate their body temperature and rate of perspiration. I ask you!
Forget skins. The only undergarments we wore were proper vests when we went to play at places like Liverpool or Southport (do you know how cold it gets at Aigburth in April?). And we didn’t change our clobber drastically for our assignment down under, either. We wore flannels and these bloody great socks, made from thick wool that you might shove on if you were hiking through the Himalayas. Oh, and how could I forget the tour jumper? Nice and thick, MCC colours, cable knit. I was perspiring like a big black Alsatian.
And it wasn’t just our attire that was inappropriate. Back in the day there was scant regard paid to what damage the sun might do to you. Skin cancer was not given a second thought, the world knew virtually nothing about it, and we all thought it was marvellous that whenever we weren’t playing we could have a sunbathe. Even on the field, there were those of us rolling sleeves up to brown off the arms, and unbuttoning shirts desperately trying to improve the tan on the chest. There would never be any danger of us putting caps or hats on, so inevitably our foreheads looked like they had head-butted a Breville by the end of a day in the field. Protection from the sun is so matter of necessity these days – particularly in Australia with their ‘slip, slap, slop’ campaign – that you take it for granted. But in those days there was none of it. The result being that we scuttled around the place like lobsters clad in flannel.
Our fitness regime was monitored by Bernard Thomas, the physio. He would start by getting the fast bowlers stretched, which entailed the likes of Bob Willis and Mike Hendrick putting the back of one of their heels up on Bernard’s shoulder, and Bernard raising up on his toes where he stood. There was a fair amount of stretching for everyone, in fact, but nowhere near the amount of physical activity players have become accustomed to as part of their preparation in subsequent years.
There was a lot of catching practice, particularly spiralling, high catches because in the thinner air the ball travels further and quicker. To lads like me who had not been down under before, looking into clear blue sky for a ball was quite a new experience, and took some adjustment. As a Lancashire lad I was more used to fielding in light drizzle. Despite the glare, however, nobody wore shades like your average endorsed 21st-century cricketer. We just squinted and got on with it.
Given the eventual 4–1 scoreline, you might anticipate a tale of misery being told of that 1974–75 tour – my only England tour as it happened – yet not a bit of it from my perspective. Although it was a chastening experience on the field, and there were some battered and bruised bodies by the end of it (mine among them), I recall it fondly. I made a bargain with myself to give it my best shot and enjoy it. In terms of touring, if not actual age, I was a young shaver and in addition to the cricket this was an adventure like none I had experienced before, and as it transpired none I would experience again (while a player at least). Even the chance to visit the vast sprawling mass that is Australia held an appeal for me.
Sure, things didn’t start well. Mike Denness, our captain, suffered from pleurisy in the early days of the tour and that was a major disruption as we didn’t see him for weeks. To dampen my personal enthusiasm, I broke my little finger in one of those darned fielding practices and missed the first Test, in Brisbane, where Thomson spectacularly deconstructed the façade that he was a fast-medium bowler fortunate to double his international caps. John Edrich broke a bone in his hand there at the Gabba and later at Sydney broke a rib. Dennis Amiss also fractured a finger in that first match, and a combination of their ailments meant I inherited one of English cricket’s great statesmen as a room-mate.
Colin Cowdrey was the equivalent of cricket royalty. He was into his 40s and very much winding down his career at that stage – as the fact that he turned up looking rather lavish in a pinstripe suit, and his warm-up at the MCG, walking around the boundary edge as adopted conductor of the brass band, testify. A real gentleman, it was an honour to spend time with him; not that everyone held him in the same regard. Indeed, after one day’s play during that Test, we were making our way out to the cars waiting for us at the back of the ground, when this little lad with his autograph book addressed Colin in a most uncouth manner. ‘Hey, Cowdrey, you podgy f***er,’ he said. ‘Sign us this!’
‘Oh, marvellous!’ Colin said, in his archetypal English gent’s voice. ‘Absolutely charming!’
Rooming with PF, as he was subsequently dubbed on that tour, was almost a throwback to the era of gentlemen and players. Although mild-mannered and warm, his record and standing in the English game was slightly intimidating, and there was also some awkward history between us for me to get over when we were thrust together upon his arrival down under. You see, sharing a room with Colin took me back to an incident that had occurred in county cricket a good few years earlier. I had not really engaged with him since this particular occurrence on the field in a match between Lancashire and Kent in the mid-1960s.
Back in that era, county teams did not tend to travel with a twelfth man in tow to away matches. You went with your XI, and, in the event that somebody got injured, you simply borrowed a player from the home team. This role of loanee was one I fulfilled from time to time when Brian Statham was captain of Lancashire – it was not to be sniffed at for an aspiring young cricketer, particularly given the toffee involved. Doing ‘twelfths’ paid a few bob as a match fee, and in most instances, there was sod all to do to earn it. Unfortunately, however, this was not the case when Kent came to Southport for a County Championship match in 1967, and Muggins here was on duty.
Called on to the field as a substitute for what was a relatively short passage of play, I promptly dropped two catches – one at mid-on and one at mid-off – to besmirch my reputation with all and sundry but most notably the esteemed leader of the opposition.
‘Tell me about your twelfth man,’ Cowdrey said to Statham later that evening. ‘What exactly is his role in the game?’
Fair
