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“For F.J. Titmus read Titmus, F.J.”

By Jonathan Calder last year, mid-November Add your comment below

There is a famous cricket story from the days when a strict divide was maintained between amateurs and professionals. It maintains that there was once an announcement at Lord’s that ran:

For F.J. Titmus read Titmus, F.J.

The point was that amateurs had their initials placed before their names and professionals had them afterwards.

I always suspected that this story was apocryphal, but a few months ago I came across of a copy of Titmus’s autobiography. In it he confirms the story and dates it to a match between the MCC and Surrey which took place in May 1950.

Thanks to the wonders of CricketArchive I can show you the match scorecard. It was quite an achievement for Titmus to be picked for an MCC side that was not far short of test strength at the age of only 17.

Sadly Titmus chose as the title of his memoirs the mundane My Life in Cricket rather than Fuckin’ ‘ell it’s Fred Titmus.

Jonathan Calder blogs at Liberal England

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2 Responses to ““For F.J. Titmus read Titmus, F.J.””

  • Miles Down-Legside wrote:
    November 11th, 2009 at 7.13 pm

    For those lacking an education in 1980s anti-Thatcher punk, the reference above alludes to a fantastic song by the Liverpool based band, Half Man Half Biscuit.

    But this has got me thinking, is this the sole reference to cricket within the entire punk genre ?

    …or was the famous World Cup 1999 Allan Donald run out celebrated in the Clash song ‘Should I stay or should I go’ ?

    Sorry, I’ll get my coat…

    M D-L

  • Miles Down-Legside wrote:
    November 11th, 2009 at 7.15 pm

    Sorry, followed the link and answered my own question….

    I’m wearing my coat now !

    M D-L

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