Emmott Robinson

Emmott Robinson (16 November 1883 – 17 November 1969) was an English first-class cricketer, who played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1919 to 1931. He was awarded his county cap in 1920. Robinson was a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm fast-medium pace.

Robinson was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, England. He is remembered as a distinctive Yorkshire character with a dry sense of humour and a solid sense of purpose. Sir Neville Cardus often wrote about him with great affection in his newspaper articles, frequently referring to him as "the old Emmott". This was not an unfair description for Robinson did not make his first-class debut until the 1919 season, when cricket resumed in England after World War I. Robinson was aged 35 by then and yet he continued playing until 1931, when he was 47. Cardus imagined that the Lord one day gathered together a heap of Yorkshire clay, and breathed into it, saying, "Emmott Robinson, go on and bowl at the pavilion end for Yorkshire". Robinson himself had a different take on his spawning: "I reckon Mr Cardus invented me".

Although he was not himself an outstanding individual player (he never played for England), he was a great team player and he was always regarded as "Wilfred's lieutenant", a reference to his role as Yorkshire's second senior professional behind Wilfred Rhodes. Many of the anecdotes and remembered incidents about Rhodes and Robinson make clear that Rhodes was the de facto captain of Yorkshire at this time, despite the club's policy of always appointing an amateur gentleman as nominal captain.

One oft-quoted anecdote, first recorded by Cardus, concerned Yorkshire's 1926 captain, Arthur Lupton, who started padding up after a wicket fell. Robinson reportedly said to him: "Tha's no need to pad up, Major. Wilfred's declaring at t'end o' t'over".

The arrangement worked well for this was one of Yorkshire's most successful periods. In the thirteen seasons that Robinson played for the first team, Yorkshire won the County Championship six times and were rarely out of contention. He was an intense competitor and was known to brood, only half in jest, on lost matches decades after stumps had been drawn.

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