By Samuel Hunter, from the Glasgow Herald, of 10th May 1968
Comrie’s greatest cricket match was when they scored 34 runs against Auchterarder in 1910. Auchterarder replied with 32. They still had five fresh men to bat. Victor Hope, Comrie’s fast bowler, took the ball. He cast aside his cap. He braced every sinew for a supreme effort. And he skittled out Auchterarder with five consecutive balls.
Sir Robert Dundas remembers it well.
He played for Comrie in that match. He still plays for Comrie. He’s 86.
Tomorrow, for the start of the new season on the local Laggan Field, he’ll be batting for them against Doune. “I go in last now and I don’t make many runs,” he apologises. “Last year my average was… about one, I’d say.”
Sir Robert also fields. “Well, I stand at point. I don’t run very fast. If it gets past me somebody else usually runs for it.”
Comrie played 16 matches last season and won two of them, but they played.
Most other village teams roundabout have handed in their bats. Auchterarder among them. So have Dunira, a nearby estate team and Comrie’s greatest foe. Dunira even had a professional. But Sir Robert scored a herculean 113 not out against them in 1930.
“My highest score? Oh dear… that would be 130 before the war,” he thinks. He means before the First World War.
Now Comrie is happy with any bat who averages 7.83 runs and more. Last season there were five of them. But the Club’s annual report says sternly:
The fielding generally was poor, but in the match against Harris F.P’s at Comrie really good catching helped George Philips to record nine for 65.
During the season after the Auchterarder match Sir Robert went for 19 years as an administrative officer to Nigeria where there was not much cricket.
“Only occasionally would there be half a dozen enthusiasts in a bush station and we turned out the natives,” he says.
Back home he later succeeded his father as Captain of Comrie and skippered them until only two years ago. But the season which matters most to him is this next one. There is a good chance that Comrie (pop. 1800) could do well against their nearest rivals, Crieff (pop 5600) and might even beat them.
“We have a new player coming,” says Sir Robert Dundas, giving warning.