By Primrose Hillbilly
January 11 2021

We have confessions of a young Middlesex supporter as Primrose Hillbilly shares his formative years and obsession with Philippe Henri Edmonds  

I was always a Middlesex fan subliminally, as my Dad had taken me to a John Player League game game against Sussex in about 1973, and we had walked to Lord’s, so it was “local”, and Middlesex played there, so that was it. 

I became a deeper supporter by a vicarious route. 

In 1974 I went to the second day of a match against Yorkshire, and sat in the old, single terraced Mound Stand, in the family tradition, and as the wicket was pitched that side. Yorkshire were batting, and I knew that a bloke called Boycott played for them. 

As play proceeded, I became aware of the tall, blonde guy bowling from the Nursery End. There was something about him. He had this beautiful, elegant, flowing approach to the crease, with his arm coming over to deliver the ball ever so slowly in a graceful arc. The whole thing was strong yet controlled. At the end of an over he took his hat and strolled away in a leisurely yet stately, preoccupied manner, intent on his work. 

The next over he would stroll to the wicket, take his hat off and hang it off the wicket for the umpire to pick up and hold for him, as a sort of joke with the umpire, to see if the hat could be picked off the stumps without dislodging the bails. When he appealed for LBW, it was in the polite manner of someone enquiring about the health of someone over the garden gate, - a very deliberate, almost conversational “How was that?”, in very home counties English. 

It was the height of Summer, and Middlesex were using Titmus, Featherstone and this guy all the time I watched. A man was using an old fashioned scorebook to note every ball just a few seats down from us, and he told us that was Edmonds. 

Yorkshire’s innings ended, and Middlesex batted. My Dad said it looked like a draw, but I could go to see the next day anyway. I got there after lunch, and discovered in the morning that J T Murray had blazed a rapid score to set up a declaration and Yorkshire were now batting for a draw. (Brearley had made over 165 in the first innings). My man was bowling again, and Middlesex were whittling away the Yorkshire wickets, but Boycott was at one end. Eventually Brearley summoned up John Price, he of the long, curving run, from the Pavillion end, and Price hurtled in, and got one to spit at Boycott, who fended it straight into my hero’s hands at short leg. Tony Nicholson proceeded to his maiden 50, but my hero bowled him soon after, and they all strolled off with pretty much no celebration whatsoever, as neither team was in contention, but Middlesex had won by over 100 runs. 

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That was that. I had a hero. Like any 12 year old, I was going to emulate him. His Playfair details were going to be learned off by heart. (B. Lusaka, Zambia, Ed. Gilbert Rennie High School, ...........“) I immediately switched to bowling spin, and tried to mimic his action. Except I was right handed. Never mind, everybody else was trying to be a fast bowler. My hero played for Middlesex, so that was that. I was a Middlesex fan too. 

As luck would have it, my hero began to be mentioned as a possible England player. He gave interviews where he was quoted as being “happy to fall for the con trick” of being a professional cricketer earning a pittance because they all loved the game. He was from the right background, having gone to Cambridge and a public school. Then I heard over the radio just before I went out to bat at school that Middlesex’s “experiment with using Phil Edmonds as an opener had gone well”. Was there no end to his talent? 

1975 was an interesting year. I returned from school with the Ashes in full swing. Lillee and Thomson had continued to wreak the havoc that they had begun in Australia the Winter before, Denness had resigned, Grieg had taken over, and he wanted men of his sort to take on the Aussies. That had to mean my man. 

It did. He made his debut at Headlingley, and England played two slow left armers, as he came on to bowl for the first time with “Deadly” Derek Underwood keeping things quiet at the other end. Yes, and of course, he took a wicket in his first over, as Greg Chappell tried to knock him off his length and got caught, ironically by “Deadly”, who was to play such a hand in the next few years. Then, then next man padded up, was plumb LBW, and he was briefly on a hat trick. He ended with a Michelle, but admitted that he had not bowled well. 

I watched another Middlesex vs Yorkshire match while this was going on. On that day Titmus and a bloke I had seen only in my Middlesex diary from the Seconds, called Emburey, bowled out Yorkshire on a rain affected pitch. I sat in the Members’ Friends stand right next to the Pavillion, I ........ think, so as to try to keep in touch with the Test via the home players dressing room reactions, which were fairly spectacular in rejoicing at the success of their colleague and relaying them to the fielders. I left as Smith and Brearley were setting about the run chase, and seemed to be going well. We can’t have had any papers where we were that weekend, because I remember being utterly devastated to read on that Sunday night when I got home, that Middlesex had gone down in a thriller, losing by about 5 runs. Oh, the travails of a young Middlesex fan. That really gutted me. 

That Test was also memorable for being abandoned, as protestors snuck in overnight, dug up the wicket and poured oil over it, to draw attention to the proclaimed innocence of George Davis, an East End “face” whom they claimed had been fitted up for several robberies by a “supergrass”. My Dad worked at Hackney Hospital, and he told us that everyone in the East End knew to the contrary, and while George was released, he was soon unable to explain the reason for being caught leaving another bank with a sawed off in one hand. 

We had to go to the Oval to see my man play, but he didn’t take a wicket in either innings. Woolmer ground out a big score to save the game, and Australia won the rubber 1-0. That probably contributed to my man not being picked to tour India that Winter. However, he obviously got on well with the Aussies, because he went off to play for a scratch side, the International Cavaliers, who numbered both Chappells and Denis Lillee among their ranks.  

Other highlights were seeing him open in the first of our two finals, and hook Graham Mackenzie for six, but he only made 11, and the travails of a young Middlesexer continued, as we lost both to Leicestershire and Lancashire, and I still hurt from Mike Smith dropping Clive Lloyd, a legendarily poor starter, when we simply had to get him out to stand a chance. That night I was inconsolable and my family gathered around me as I poured my heart out at our loss. Still, when all seemed lost at the hands of the canny Lancs bowlers, my man had stood tall and hammered Peter Lever for three consecutive fours all over Lords’ ....... briefly. 

That brought in the Summer of ’76. By the time I was back in London, we were riding high in the championship. It was a very dry Summer with a hosepipe ban. Selvey and new boy A. A ("Uugh !!!" as he bowled) Jones took the new ball, then it was over to Edmonds, Featherstone and Titmus to spin us to victory. My hero was by now wearing a sunhat so small that it effectively afforded no shade whatsoever, but he turned the brim up at the back, so it resembled a pork pie hat or trilby, and ....if I could have found one in my size, yes I would have too. He fielded perilously close at short leg, so that was now my specialist position too – (still is, and I’ve had a lot of fun taking catches there and only been hit once, -a nudge off the hips, straight onto the protector, but my hands clutched the rebound, and its in the book as Ct, so there we are) – choose which bowlers you can really trust, is the secret. 

I became an “Edmondsologist”, keeping newspaper articles about him and recording astonishing facts off the "round the counties" slot on the radio about him. In one game, he came into bat in the still very sedate county championship and got off the mark first ball with a towering six. Next thing I heard, in another match against Kent, he was taken by surprise by a ball which he inadvertently knocked up in the air right above where he was batting, tried to protect his wicket with his bat, by knocking it up in the air again, and this time it was caught, and so he was either out “Hit the ball twice” or just caught. 

The first hint of the controversy that was to haunt him for the rest of his career emerged then. He was selected in the 12 to play against the West Indies, with Viv Richards in full flight, but cried off a couple of days before, saying he had a sore spinning finger. However, he turned out for Middlesex immediately after crying off, the justification being that he could guarantee being able to bowl 20 or so overs in a CC innings, but not extended spells in a longer 5 day game, Didn’t stop the press claiming he was running scared. 

However, in that same Summer, where Grieg’s England were made to “grovel” by Clive Lloyd, Viv, Roberts, Holding and Daniel, which team was the only one to beat the West Indies? Yepp, the mighty Middle. My man made 50 in the first innings and swung hard and high to help us knock off the runs.  

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Phil was also an ever present in “that” 1976 team, winning our first CC since 1948, and I still have the picture of him with his arm round Roly Butcher’s shoulders while Brears pours the champagne. The third day, after we had won the CC, he and another favourite, Smokey Featherstone steadied a sinking ship and then knocked off the runs to win that game for us outright, each having taken 5 second innings wickets too. He was a genuine all rounder. He was God. He had to play for England and captain the side. 

In 1977, he and Radley saw us home to finally win the Gillette, and we tied with Kent to win the CC (437 Runs, 72 Wickets), but the door to England remained shut, as the ever present, ever reliable, man for all tracks and match conditions, “Deadly”, still barred the door. 

It opened when Grieg took several team mates to join Packer’s “World Series Cricket” enterprise. “Deadly”, along with Knott had been fixtures in the side for pretty much ever, and they both decided to earn some real money in Australia, so were banned by England until the court case decided that, in the absence of any other contract, a professional cricketer had the right to ply his trade wherever he liked, and such a ban was restraint of trade. 

Apparently, Edmonds had been sounded out, and said he was interested in principle, but could he have more details, and maybe his reputation preceded him, or maybe they just wanted people to sign up and hope the money would come in later, but he never got called back. 


Brearley took over the captaincy, and in 1978, he was the first choice spinner, and, as if to the manner born, took 4 -20 and 4 – 44 against New Zealand and 4 - 44 against Pakistan. 

Rather spookily, my folks moved down to Kent then, and, cycling through the local market town, the next Spring, I was overtaken by his sponsored VW Polo, which turned into a side street and stopped. How did he know? As he was definitely touring Pakistan then, this needed to be investigated, so I followed it, and it turned out to be his father driving it, and the family ran a local hotel ............ Within two weeks, the man to whom by now I felt pretty much related took 7 – 66, which was the best bowling figures for an England player in Pakistan. 

He had his county captain as skipper. His nemesis, “Deadly”, was in exile. He was bowling like a king. He walked the walk. He still wore his hat with the brim turned up. Glory, fame, fortune, the Middlesex and England captaincies all beckoned.