Beckham - best English right midfielder ever or....

No place in the top 50, though, for the only player to captain England at both cricket and football who was.... :?:

Arthur Milton. What do I get?

vilkrang wrote:Arthur Milton. What do I get?

Close, but no cigar. Played for England at football (1 match v. Austria, 1951) and cricket (6 Tests v. NZ, Oz & India 1958-9 including a century on debut) but captained in neither (except for Gloucestershire in 1968 when I saw him play at Trent Bridge in a Gillette Cup match). The player (or should I say gentleman) I'm thinking of made perhaps the most remarkable debut of all (at least in one international sporting contest).

R E Foster.

Ah well. I don't really like cigars anyway.

Shoeshine wrote:R E Foster.

Yes, one of seven brothers who all played for Worcestershire (when it became known as "Fostershire" although not Frank Foster who captained Warwickshire to their first Championship success in 1911 and was vc on the 1911-12 MCC tour of Australia and was no relation) 'Tip' Foster famously made the then record Test score of 287 at the SCG in his debut Test innings in December 1903 (still the record score made on debut). Business limited him to just one full season in fc cricket in which he made over 2200 runs @ over 50. The season before he had made the then record score in the Varsity Match (171) and scored centuries in both innings for the Gentlemen v. the Players.

Foster played inside-right for the Corinthians (a team made up of Oxford & Cambridge graduates) as well as appearing 5 times for England between 1900 and 1903, captaining England on his last appearance against Wales in 1903. In 1901 he scored two goals in a 3-0 victory over Ireland at Southampton for an England side that included C.B.Fry at right-back. He once scored all six goals for a Football League XI v. a German League XI.

He played in 8 Tests for England, captaining them in the 3-match series of South Africa's first tour in 1907. He was never able to match his first 7 hours (less 1 minute) as a Test batsman. Sadly, he died at the age of 36 of diabetes in a pre-insulin age.

An interesting list of England football captains that includes Foster, as well as the very first, Cuthbert Ottaway, an Old Etonian snob who looked down on the lower orders, and the player who the article describes, with only slight exaggeration, as

probably the greatest sportsman who ever lived

but who is totally obscure today. I think Terry and Ferdinand would have difficulty fitting into that company:

England football captains

vilkrang wrote:Erm... No...

What a strange thing to say.

Well the top England player (per Allan's list) rates him.

Duncan Edwards I unhesitatingly say was the best player I ever played with. I never thought I could be as good as him. Never. Never.

Munich Remembered