Botham: My Autobiography - Ian Botham

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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 being asked for an opinion on club politics, which meant I could just concentrate on playing and going for a beer afterwards – and that suited me down to the ground.

      Quietly, though, I had already sorted out my objectives. Priority number one was to get in the team, then stay there. From there, the target was a county cap. And next, even at this stage, was England.

      First there was the little matter of finding a place to live. My initial fixed abode was in Greenway Road, Taunton, where I was billeted with Dennis Breakwell, the slow left-arm bowler who had recently joined us from Northamptonshire. It was called a club flat, but there is no doubt that the term ‘flat’ definitely represented a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was a complete tip: even the cockroaches passed by on the other side of the street because some of its unique features would have tested the descriptive talents of the most imaginative estate agent. First, it was so damp that there were fish jumping out of the wall. Then, due to the fact that the mod cons had been cut off from the previous summer, there was no electricity or water. We did have the luxury of a toilet but it happened to be situated outside, and flushing it could only be achieved by the skilful application of a bucket of water. The only heating we had was created by burning newspapers and old rubbish. There were no cooking facilities so we made sure to get our fill at the ground or to raid the milk float that clattered down the street in the early morning. It was not the sort of place we looked forward to returning to at the end of the day, so more often than not we didn’t. We spent most of our evenings in the Gardener’s Arms, not just to be sociable but also to have a roof over our heads and a bit of warmth and light.

      Here, the most useful aspect of my training at Lord’s was put to good use. When it came to the challenge of sinking three pints in a minute, no one could touch me. At closing time it was off to a club, either the Camelot or the 88-400, or back to play cards by candlelight. We kipped in sleeping bags on the floor. Luxury. Fortunately by the start of my breakthrough season in 1974 the situation had improved somewhat. My salary had been doubled – to £500 per annum – and Dennis and I found a new flat, in St James Street, right next to the county ground. We also had a new flat-mate, Viv Richards.

      Viv and I had hit it off the first time we met, when we had been selected to play for Somerset Under-25s against Glamorgan at the Lansdowne Cricket Club. The grapevine had already been humming with stories of the young West Indian, and when we bumped into each other I found that he had also heard of me. The moment he dropped his bag on the dressing room floor something clicked between us and that bond has remained ever since. What also helped to break the ice was the fact that our performances in that match represented a spectacular reversal of roles. Viv, the great batting hope, was bowled first ball but then redeemed himself by taking five for 25. Yours truly, who was busy boring everyone to tears with tales of my brilliant bowling, chucked down a lot of old rubbish then scored a century. Afterwards I said to him: ‘Listen, Viv. You take the wickets. I’ll score the runs’.

      Even then, Viv was totally committed to succeeding. He later said that what struck him about me in those early days was my total belief in myself and the fact that I was always positive. What impressed me was that there was never any danger that he was not going to make full use of his immense talent. He had the best eye of any cricketer I have ever seen, and he said he felt that any moment of the match when he was not batting was wasted. I think that came from his childhood experiences of playing beach cricket on his native island of Antigua. He told me once about his childhood, and how on the beach he would be one of a huge crowd of kids waiting for their turn to bat. If you got out, it was quite possible you would not get another chance for days, so you did everything you could to stay in. I respected his near-obsession, but although I was also single-minded about succeeding I didn’t go quite so far as he did in those early days. While he would actually sleep with his bat by the bed, my sleeping companion was a bottle of gin.

      These were heady days but things were also close to getting out of hand. The early successes were marvellous, of course, but with them came local fame, and with that some local aggro. I had been in my fair share of scraps at school but the more successful I was on the cricket field, the more the so-called hard men of life wanted to have a pop at me. When I went out to a pub with friends, there would always be the one comedian who insisted on proving to his mates that he was tougher than me, and I had difficulty coming to terms with that. Where some people could just count to ten and walk away, I had difficulty getting past one. I was never one of those who could turn the other cheek; it was always an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

      Although later incidents were to have

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