We entered all of them and you can stood throughout the longest queue, to possess Greig’s signature. When it are fundamentally my personal change, We summoned upwards courage and advised your, that have hook quaver, that it was a “helluva hook”. A separate idol minted indeed there and then. For another a decade, when he ran on wider flow, Greig turned out a rewarding however, problematic champion – a silver doubloon, never ever entirely dropping its essential lustre however, frequently in need of restorative refining. Along side second couple of seasons, I spotted him off in the Hove in the most common household game. Save yourself for five wickets and you may a fast 93 up against Hampshire from inside the July 1969, I do not contemplate your while making one high sum. But the guy always did anything. A booming protection push otherwise a tow try bouncing off of the scoreboard getting half a dozen.
Sussex thrashed all of them, and you can Greig was Man of your own Suits: 54 in the first innings, away from 199, immediately after which four wickets
Or a good bouncer injudiciously aimed at Mike Procter’s direct, exactly who following hit him for 4, cuatro, 6, 4 as he is actually clobbered for more than 130 of 20 unusual overs. In which he usually finalized autographs. I’d your seven moments in 2 season. After, the guy also told you, “Ach, it’s you once more. We never noticed your deny someone. I seated beneath the dispersed boughs of your popular lime tree. Robbo regaled you for hours that have reports away from viewing Les Ames, Godfrey Evans and you can Doug Wright as a great boy. The center mutton is actually a head field who’d setup an enthusiastic encyclopaedic knowledge of Kent cricket, and their unique father’s visible satisfaction, besides admonished your as he nudged me personally and you may discussed an appealing “popsy” in the audience however, corrected him as he got particular facts otherwise contour completely wrong.
Which was tend to. Robbo was never ever you to definitely to have statistical outline; it absolutely was the story that mattered. Kent’s illustrious record – whether facts or myth – did not assist far on that scorching July day. By the end throughout the day, each other middle mutton and you can Robbo themselves was demonstrably smitten. We knew you to to be true since the, even with their child from earshot, my personal brother no more talked of the long move away from piss, but of “Greigy”.
Greig played simply a services character you to definitely time; a quick-flames thirty-six about Sussex innings and two wickets, as well as that of Kent’s better scorer, Graham Johnson, stuck because of the Tony Buss of a long-get
And Sussex made it happen once again 36 months after. Gillette Mug one-fourth-last, August step 1, 1973, at the Hove. From this time Greig try a recently dependent England user and you may Sussex head. Once more, I went with Robbo, and we also almost skipped they. My personal bro got organized the afternoon but when we pitched upwards ticketless at Tate Doors, we were solidly became aside. Good sellout. The fresh new stewards (“soft little Hitlers”) had no truck having Robbo’s “Come on, this is the boy’s birthday celebration today.” (It wasn’t.) But, he wasn’t stopping one to effortlessly just in case advised a tiny warily how I’d into the soil at no cost that have my personal friends, next thing We know I found myself offering my portly bro a base-up over the garden wall structure of one of larger homes one supported onto the ocean stop of your soil. Inside, buoyed from the the triumph, Robbo’s attraction hit overdrive and then he for some reason nice-spoke brand new less draconian into the-ground ushers so effortlessly, that we wound up from the gangway of your members’ pavilion, proper near the players’ balcony. From inside the basic innings I spotted while the Greig spent some time working his way by way of almost an entire package out-of Benson and you will Hedges, and you can Robbo, really the only Kent supporter in our midst, cheered most of the work with while the his lads chased 264 about second. Today an adolescent, I was a little embarrassed through this, but thank goodness truth be told there were not a lot of them. Operates, which is. Kent was indeed bowled aside getting 135. However, you to did not number. As the players endured with the outfield and basked regarding cheers of one’s 10,000-strong group, Sussex got won. We noticed as the short boys in-line to discover the skipper’s autograph – I happened to be to start with that now – and you may indexed one to Robbo got entered all of them. The guy and you can Greig had been in the future involved with going talk. Both was basically laughing, thoughts tossed right back, as the waiting line out of small boys prolonged, shifting anxiously regarding foot in order to ft. Once exactly what seemed for years and years, it shook give warmly and Robbo patted his the fresh friend familiarly on the back. He emerged bounding backup the pavilion tips, clutching his closed scorecard – “It is towards middle lamb,” the guy lied – and you will beaming off ear-to-ear. “He’s a soft big bloke.” The sense it actually was Greig’s Sussex one to obtained the overall game is palpable. John Spencer, new Sussex bowler, informed me recently that in case Greig took more than, the complete ambiance on a bar “dogged from the backbiting, cynicism and you can negativity” altered nearly right away. Greig try a breath from bracing water sky.