Former Bear Bob Willis on loving life at Edgbaston

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your work sure career began with a tour much against the Australian somebody for your deputy was there wasn't it I didn't move from sorry come about well I I started my career sorry 1969 and I played there for three seasons during which I got selected for that tour of Australia in 70 71 but sorry had two very good spin bowlers Pat Pocock and into Carver lamb and they played a an all-rounder called Stuart story so it was really only room for two specialists seam bowlers and Jeff Arnold and Robin Jackman and I were vying for two places from the three of us so come 1971 Jeff Arnold was very much the number one bowler so it was a toss-up between Robin Jackman and myself or the other place in the team so having played for England in the 7071 season I came back to Surrey and I was spending half the season in the second 11th which I didn't think was going to you know Ford my England career very much so I said to Robin Jackman you've been at the club longer and I have you'll have a benefit before I will so I think I should leave and see past his news so that's how it came about but in those archaic days I had to qualify for Warwickshire for half a season I wasn't allowed to play until the 1st of July that was in the county championship in the one-day games but I wasn't forgotten buying and I played for the MCC against the touring Australians and eventually qualified to play against Worcester in the county chairmanship and the Sunday League at the beginning of July but it was a very long wait was it well I'd got to know Bernhard Thomas the Warwickshire England physio very well on tour and he must have given alan smith who was the war a captain at the time a pretty good reference everybody was looking for quick bowlers and I think 12 of the then 17 counties approached me to join them but I thought that Warwickshire was the best run Club I went to and I met the chairman in those days Edmond King and Allen Smith very much wanted me in the side and being a staunch member the estat establishment AC said I think your England prospects will be much better served here than one of the smaller counties yeah it was very exciting indeed it was an incredible side I don't know what rules were actual were bending to have for Test match West Indians in the team in that 72 chairmanship winning side can i calhr and eric marion lance gibbs and apart from norman McVicker our all-rounder at number seven the other members of the side were England test caps as well so he had 10 internationals in our side plus Norman McVicker so it wasn't really any great surprise that we were able to win the championship which we managed to do against Nottingham sure up at Trent Bridge and celebrated longing to the night correct indeed yeah we did I don't think the dressing room attendance at Trent Bridge had ever seen anything quite like but there wasn't a dramatic amount of success for Warwickshire during the 70's but we certainly made him most of that and backed it up when we won the John play league in 1980 the dams I guess of having those four West Indians is that there was there wasn't too much behind it as it proved in the nineteen seven days it was a tough decade wasn't it yes I mean I I enjoyed playing with the West Indies test players obviously but I didn't think it was doing the long term prospects for work oh very much good at all and so it proved we had some very talented players you know the likes of Niall a ballet and Graham Warner alan gordon who were basically condemned to playing second xi cricket whose careers may have blossomed had they had more opportunity but clearly it was a big boost for the members and the Warwickshire fans to win the county chairmanship having got so close the year before when Surrey picked them and as you mentioned he was yes we had a great bunch of young athletic fielders which helped us enormously the likes of Andy Lloyd and John Walton and Philip Oliver fielded brilliantly and we engaged Jon Snow part of the way through the season to sort of fill the gap when I was away at Test matches and we got a really good thing going with that side and everyone was pulling together for one another we certainly weren't the most talented side in the country but it was great to have a real team ethic we were never going to be a championship winning side with our resources but it was great to finally win a one-day trophy how do you reflect on your time involved because it must have been really strange playing some great England Matthews and series wins and yet I was looking through the wisdoms the other day and one of the war up sections described Edgbaston as a mausoleum what season it have been really difficult with the contrast yes and being fast bowler it was difficult to you don't turn on the power day in day out we were playing six Test match summers in those days some without rest days and you know you'd go straight back into a County Championship match and I'm pretty sure that some of the Warwickshire members got a bit fed up with me not showing my England form for Warwickshire and of course playing county cricket in a massive Test match ground you've got to make your own atmosphere really and if you haven't got a top-quality bowling side which Warwickshire didn't really have once David Brown retired in the mid seventies we were never really going to be competing in the county championship so the second halves of some seasons became pretty pedestrian where you knew couldn't compete for honours I spoke to the class small a couple of weeks ago actually and he said he remembered sometimes that you would get back from England on a Tuesday night having as he put it pollard probably something to the dirt for england the championship match would start on the wednesday morning and it's almost bizarre isn't it when you think you've had central contracts have changed everything for england players now but the locks of your cell phonee in both i'm had to go back in fulfil for county duty as well it's a lot to ask of the body department yes it was and the the regime was ridiculous midsummer we'd finish a a county championship match on a Tuesday afternoon with the Sun daily wedged in between the Sunday Monday and Tuesday and then the Wednesday morning you'd travel to the Test match venue three o'clock quick net for an hour and a half and then off to the hotel to check in the team dinner and straight into the Test match the next day and then as he say Tuesday afternoon you might finish the Test match at six o'clock in the evening back in the car may drive the length of the country to the next and meant to turn on the next day was pretty impossible for everybody but particularly the fast bowlers I'm sure that Stewart broad and James Anderson are very pleased they don't have to do that yes it fell into two halves really sort of three 1977 when I was injured a lot and in and out of the side and when Tony Gregg was captain he gave me a rocket after the centenary Test match in Australia in mark 77 when I ran out of steam and he he said you've got to get yourself a lot fitter he said I'd looked after you in India and Sri lon and the build-up to the centenary Test match and you ran out steam you've got to get a lot more fit they're going to be great riches available for top-quality cricketers coming up I didn't realize he was then of course referring to World Series cricket but I took his word to heart and got really fit when I came back and I hardly missed any Test matches at all in the second half of my career so that was a big bonus for me and of course you know I was very close to if you like the cricketer establishment the likes of Duggan so Lee was very influential to the tessen County Cricket Board and of course Allen Smith who later became the secretary of the TCC bee and I knew the players that went to World Series cricket although earning a lot of money were going to be banned from playing for England and my whole raison d'être in my cricketing life was to play for England and look down on my sweater at the crown and Three Lions so Warwickshire looked after me and gave me a concept where they would pay me even if I got injured and my career finished through injury so that was very good of them to support me and the same thing happened later on in my career when a staggering offer came from the South African Breweries tour to go and skipper that rebel side in South Africa I managed to turn that down as well so I could keep playing for England and just finally yeah because you've stayed in cricket or connected to cricket all the way through just part of you still very much so I had the honour I've been made an honorary life member of the club and I always get a very very warm welcome when I go up to edge Bastogne doesn't matter with the Chairman's changed or the chief executive has changed and if ever were introduced to the crowd a very warm reception edge person I love going back to the ground there's a very very active Warwickshire old cricketers Association we have a great laugh and we get together once or twice a year so it's it's tremendous to look back on those years and hopefully we maybe I may be able to have a 40th anniversary party for our John player League victory in 2020
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Channel: WarwickshireCCC
Views: 13,243
Rating: 4.9047618 out of 5
Keywords: Warwickshire CCC, Warwickshire County Cricket Club, Edgbaston, You Bears
Id: a__viUyBT-c
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)
Published: Sun Dec 30 2018
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