A Geordie All-Rounder: 43 - After County Cricket
"In September 19691 walked out of the County Ground at Northampton for the last time. Equipped with my P45 and after saying farewell to my colleagues, I asked myself, "What am I going to do now?" writes Malcolm Scott, continuing his autobiography.
I had enjoyed my coaching work in South Africa and the possibility of a similar job in this country attracted me. Somehow I became aware of a coaching job for both football and cricket at the prestigious Royal Wolverhampton School at Perm in the West Midlands. In a short space of time I applied for the job, attended an interview, and got the post.
Mary and I were buying a house in Northampton at the time so we decided to see how things went before moving to Wolverhampton. I stayed in the West Midlands during the week and returned to Northampton at the weekend. Perhaps not the best start to married life.
The coaching was quite enjoyable and I was happy at the Royal Wolverhampton School until the spring of 1970 when I got an unexpected phone call. It was from ex-Aussie batsman Jock Livingston who informed me there was a vacancy for a salesman at Grays of Cambridge and asked "Would I be interested?" Grays made and sold cricket bats, amongst other things, and someone in their hierarchy must have thought ex-County cricketers would make good salesmen. Anyway the job sounded good and it could result in a permanent post with a pension.
So off I went to Cambridge, had an interview, and got the job. I was sorry to leave the Royal Wolverhampton School where I had made some good friends. Also they must have been impressed with my work because the last thing the Head said was "Don't be frightened to come back if this job doesn't work out."
My new position was Area Representative for the south of England. There was some training on the job and I learnt the product range which included cricket bats, badminton, squash, and tennis racquets and a range of winter sports equipment. One advantage of the job was that a car was provided.
I used to love going to the cricket bat factory in Battle in Sussex, a little village where the locals told me that the actual Battle of Hastings was fought. It was good to watch craftsmen on their lathes turning out Gray and Nicholls bats and then finishing them off by hand. There were often some big name cricketer visiting the factory, selecting bats for his future use. They really were top match products.
Of all the sports equipment Grays sold, the cricket bats and squash racquets were the gear that went like hot potatoes (my Granny could have sold them). Much more difficult at the time were tennis racquets where we had to compete with Dunlop and Slazenger.
