R. C. Robertson-Glasgow
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Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Raymond Charles Robertson-Glasgow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Murrayfield, Edinburgh, Scotland | 15 July 1901||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 4 March 1965 Buckhold, Berkshire, England | (aged 63)||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nickname | Crusoe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right arm fast-medium | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1920–1935 | Somerset | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1927–1933 | Marylebone Cricket Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1920–1923 | Oxford University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: CricketArchive, 16 December 2008 |
Raymond Charles "Crusoe" Robertson-Glasgow (15 July 1901 – 4 March 1965) was a Scottish cricketer and cricket writer.
Life and career
Robertson-Glasgow was born in Edinburgh and educated at Charterhouse School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.[1] He was a right-arm fast-medium bowler who played for Oxford University and Somerset. During his career, which lasted from 1920 to 1937, he took 464 wickets at 25.77 in first-class cricket, with best innings figures of 9 for 38 when Somerset defeated Middlesex at Lord's in June 1924.[2]
Convivial, popular and humorous, he subsequently won acclaim for his writing, in which his strong sense of humour shone through.[3] In 1933 he became cricket correspondent for the Morning Post. He later wrote for the Daily Telegraph, The Observer and the Sunday Times.
Robertson-Glasgow retired from regular cricket writing in 1953. He was Chairman of the Cricket Writers' Club in 1959.[4]
His nickname of "Crusoe" came, according to Robertson-Glasgow himself, from the Essex batsman Charlie McGahey. When his captain asked McGahey how he had been dismissed, he replied: "I was bowled by an old ----- I thought was dead two thousand years ago, called Robinson Crusoe."[5]
Robertson-Glasgow committed suicide during a snowstorm whilst in the grip of melancholic depression.[1][6]
Books
Robertson-Glasgow's cricket books include:[7]
- Cricket Prints: Some Batsmen and Bowlers (1920-1940) (Werner Laurie, 1948)
- More Cricket Prints: Some Batsmen and Bowlers (1920-1945) (1948)
- 46 Not Out - an autobiography (1948)
- Rain Stopped Play (1948)
- The Brighter Side of Cricket (Arthur Barker, 1950)
- All in the Game (1952)
- How to Become a Test Cricketer (1962)
- Crusoe on Cricket: The Cricket Writings of R. C. Robertson-Glasgow (1966)
He also wrote the following non-cricket books:
- I was Himmler's Aunt (1940)
- No Other Land (1942)
- Country Talk: A Miscellany (1964)
References
- ^ a b Foot, David. "Cricket's Crusoe on this sporting life". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
- ^ "Middlesex v Somerset 1924". Cricinfo. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
- ^ Christopher Hollis, Oxford in the Twenties (1976)
- ^ Cricket Writers' Club Honours Board.. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
- ^ RC Robertson-Glasgow, 46 Not Out, Hollis & Carter (1948), p.108.
- ^ "Raymond Robertson-Glasgow". Cricinfo. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
- ^ Robertson Glasgow R C – new and used books
External links
- 1901 births
- 1965 deaths
- 1965 suicides
- Cricketers from Edinburgh
- People educated at Charterhouse School
- Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
- English cricketers
- Oxford University cricketers
- Somerset cricketers
- Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
- Gentlemen cricketers
- Cricket historians and writers
- Suicides in England
- Free Foresters cricketers
- Harlequins cricketers
- Gentlemen of England cricketers
- Oxford and Cambridge Universities cricketers
- H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers