Last in the Tin Bath: The Autobiography by David Lloyd

Author:David Lloyd [Lloyd, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER 10

Flippin’ Heck

Montego Bay will hold special memories for hundreds of Brits who have ventured to the Caribbean for some winter sun. It retains its relevance for me because it’s where I was offered the chance to become England coach. There are worse places to be told.

Naturally, this is not a job that you plan for. After all, it carries a fair amount of exclusivity, being the only job of its type in the country and one not to be treated lightly. Additionally, it had never really occurred to me that I might even be in the running for it, until the day in January 1996 when I picked Michael Atherton up from the airport following England’s disappointing tour to South Africa.

Atherton, with whom I enjoyed both a personal friendship and professional relationship as his coach at Lancashire, told me in no uncertain terms that I just had to get involved in reviving the national team’s fortunes. It was not a period in which I dwelt too much on future plans because the present needed plenty of attention – the breaking up of our family unit hit hard, particularly for our four children, and I felt responsible for the upset I had brought to their lives. It seems a lifetime ago now, but it would be wrong not to acknowledge it was wretchedly tough piecing things back together.

When I returned to Lancashire as coach, I had been away what seemed like an age, and I think that helped. The young players I was asked to work with had an idea who I was but there was no baggage. I knew what playing for the club meant, and I wanted to transfer that into the team. I tried to make it our style that anyone who came to Old Trafford was going to find an aggressive team playing for the badge, the red rose. It was a policy that paid off, and my CV included the 1995 Benson & Hedges Cup final victory over Kent at Lord’s and fourth-placed finish in the County Championship that year. All this while losing as many as half a dozen players to England duty at any given time.

My affection for the club meant that the move back to Old Trafford in the winter of 1992-93, to replace Alan Ormrod, and share team responsibilities with David Hughes, who became manager, was a happy one, a reflection that contrasted with the disillusionment I felt during some of my final seasons on the playing staff. As back then, one-day cricket proved our forte, and given the quality of players like Wasim Akram, Atherton, and John Crawley, not to mention 1992 World Cup finalist Neil Fairbrother and other highly under-rated performers such as Mike Watkinson, Peter Martin and Ian Austin, it was no wonder.

I was so proud of this team, and when it didn’t get the credit I felt it deserved in defeating Kent in that B&H final, I flipped. For some reason, although we won, Kent’s Aravinda de

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