R. C. Robertson-Glasgow

Raymond Charles "Crusoe" Robertson-Glasgow (15 July 1901 – 4 March 1965) was a Scottish cricketer and cricket writer.

R. C. Robertson-Glasgow
Personal information
Full name
Raymond Charles Robertson-Glasgow
Born(1901-07-15)15 July 1901
Murrayfield, Edinburgh, Scotland
Died4 March 1965(1965-03-04) (aged 63)
Buckhold, Berkshire, England
NicknameCrusoe
BattingRight-handed
BowlingRight-arm fast-medium
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1920–1935Somerset
1927–1933Marylebone Cricket Club
1920–1923Oxford University
Career statistics
Competition First-class
Matches 144
Runs scored 2,102
Batting average 13.22
100s/50s 0/4
Top score 80
Balls bowled 25,190
Wickets 464
Bowling average 25.77
5 wickets in innings 28
10 wickets in match 6
Best bowling 9/38
Catches/stumpings 88/–
Source: CricketArchive, 16 December 2008

Early life

Robertson-Glasgow was born in Edinburgh to a Scottish soldier and the daughter of an East Anglian clergyman.[1] Their marriage was an unhappy one, and Robertson-Glasgow's mother was inattentive to her two sons.[2] He won a scholarship to Charterhouse School and went on to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Although he enjoyed university life, it was while at Oxford that he began to experience the periodical depression that he was to struggle with for the rest of his life.[3]

Cricket

Robertson-Glasgow was a right-arm fast-medium bowler and useful tail-end batsman who played for Oxford University and Somerset in a first-class career that lasted from 1920 to 1937. In all 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.[4]

Convivial, popular and humorous, Robertson-Glasgow subsequently won acclaim for his writing, in which his strong sense of humour shone through.[5] In 1933 he became cricket correspondent for the Morning Post. He later wrote for the Daily Telegraph, The Observer and the Sunday Times. He retired from regular cricket writing in 1953. He was Chairman of the Cricket Writers' Club in 1959.[6]

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."[7]

Death

Robertson-Glasgow committed suicide during a snowstorm whilst in the grip of melancholic depression.[8][9]

Books

Robertson-Glasgow's cricket books include:[10]

  • 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
  1. David Foot, Fragments of Idolatry, Fairfield Books, Bath, 2001, p. 24.
  2. Foot, Fragments of Idolatry, p. 25.
  3. Foot, Fragments of Idolatry, pp. 25–26.
  4. "Middlesex v Somerset 1924". Cricinfo. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  5. Christopher Hollis, Oxford in the Twenties (1976)
  6. Cricket Writers' Club Honours Board. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  7. RC Robertson-Glasgow, 46 Not Out, Hollis & Carter (1948), p.108.
  8. Foot, David. "Cricket's Crusoe on this sporting life". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
  9. "Raymond Robertson-Glasgow". Cricinfo. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  10. Robertson Glasgow R C – new and used books
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