Robert Philip: Odd couple in harmony through changing times (23 May 1997)

Friday 23 May 1997

Odd couple in harmony through changing times

By Robert Philip

FRIENDS for 35 years, former England cricket captain Bob Willis and ex-Corinthian Casual centre-forward Martin Tyler attended school together in Guildford, shared a flat in Streatham, and now work as Sky commentators. But over lunch in the sedate surroundings of the Conservatory Restaurant in London`s Lanesborough Hotel, would they become men behaving badly?

Tyler: More like the Odd Couple. I was the scruffy one, the Jack Klugman character, and Bob was always neat and tidy like Tony Randall. I used to keep the team`s dirty kit and footballs in the bath. That`s how I remember it, how about you?

Willis: I`d be in my room listening to Gustav Mahler, while Martin was through the wall in what was the sitting room really

Tyler: . . . reading Robin Marlar.

Willis: About the only toss I ever won during my career was for the larger of the two rooms in this flat. There was one downside - there wasn`t any heating.

British broadcasting`s Oscar Madison and Felix Unger make an odd partnership, indeed. Willis has fashioned a hobby out of Australian fine wines, Tyler is happy with tap water. "Please don`t make it sound like I`m a puritan, I`m not. I just don`t like the taste of alcohol."

Willis became a national hero by bowling out the Australians at Headingley in 1981, taking eight for 43, to lead England to arguably their most famous Test victory; Tyler spent his sporting career in the Isthmian League. Willis adopted `Dylan` as one of his middle names in honour of the ageing troubador; Tyler likes the Spice Girls.

Willis: What was that single you kept playing in 1970? `Patches`?

Tyler (delightedly): Oh, yeah. Clarence Carter. `I was born and raised in Alabama` . . .

Willis: No, we weren`t on what you would describe as the same musical wavelength. Poor Zap [more of which later] had to endure entire albums of Dylan. At least `Patches` was only a single.

Tyler: I did like `Lay Lady Lay`.

Willis: You can tell he`s a Radio 2 man, can`t you?

Oscar and Felix met at Royal Grammar School, Guildford, in the early Sixties where Tyler opened the batting for the first XI while Willis, even then, was a demon fast bowler for the under-15s. They then joined Corinthian Casuals, Willis as a goalkeeper, Tyler as a striker, a position in which he turns out even yet though nudging 50 . . .

Tyler: The one advantage about being unsuccessful in my professional sporting ambitions is that I still love playing. But you can`t get Bob on a cricket pitch anymore. The great thing about growing old, you know, is that I was never that quick anyway. That was the reason I never really got off the ground as far as football`s concerned. I learnt to play without pace when I was very, very young, so I had no pace to lose.

Willis: You certainly displayed no turn of pace when it came to cooking or washing up. Zap always had some football injury which prevented him going near the sink or the stove.

Tyler: That`s how I got my nickname. Frank Zappa [lead singer of the Mothers of Invention lest you do not know] fell off stage and broke his leg around the same time I was

in plaster. Since that day, Bob has always called me Zap.

Enter Rigsby, in the shape of their long-suffering landlord who lived directly underneath them on the ground floor . .

Tyler: We were young and obviously fairly sport orientated, so we used to play `Penalty Prize`, which was all the rage on ITV at the time, in my room. My room being the bedsit part of the flat, we used the couch as the goal. Bob, being a goalkeeper, never hesitated to throw himself around, nearly bringing the house down about our ears. The old gentleman down below couldn`t have been too happy but he was really kind to us . . .

Willis: He wasn`t that kind, there was never any heating in the room, remember . . .

Tyler: Anyway, that was 1970, I went to ITV in `73 and a year after that I was out on the pitch announcing `Penalty Prize` up and down the country. The grand final was held at Wembley on League Cup final day and Pete Murray used to get that. I was at Middlesbrough, meanwhile, on a wet Tuesday night in November shouting, `One out of one, two out of two, and so on` .

While Tyler was beginning his television career at ITV, the youthful Willis was launching his Test career with Surrey .

Willis: My father had been a journalist in Sunderland, where I was born, and Manchester before joining the BBC in London. I went on an NUJ training course when I left school in the hope of following him into the business but I didn`t get selected. So, apart from one summer on the petrol pumps at Eppingham crossroads, I really went straight from school to playing cricket.

Tyler: I can remember Bob and me watching the first Test from Australia in 1970 on our little black and white telly in our little flat in Thornton Avenue. It was the first time highlights had come from Australia. Richie Benaud had been pushing Bob as a potential replacement because Alan Ward had broken down so he borrowed my tracksuit and went for a run . .

Willis: . . . round Tooting Bec Common . . .

Tyler: . . . to get fit. However, there was nothing in the Sunday papers at all, and on the Monday morning when I set off for work - I was doing shifts as a market researcher - I said, `See you tonight`. Then I turned round and said, `Actually, I won`t see you tonight because you`ll be in Australia tonight had been summoned Down Under. A fortnight later I`m sitting in the same room in Streatham watching him on our telly. I was so proud of him - still am.

It was Tyler who introduced his pal to his future wife, Juliette Willis, and it was Willis who served as godfather at the birth of Adam Tyler nine years ago. Throughout their lives, one or other has been an encouraging or teasing presence at every momentous occasion . . .

Tyler: Like Headingley in `81? No, sadly I wasn`t there because I was due in the studio to record a voice-over commentary on a Brazilian football match for ITN. My booking was for two o`clock, just when Bob was in full cry. I told them, `Sorry, but I can`t start until he completesthe job`.

We put the recording on hold - which must have cost someone some money - until my old flatmate had done it to the Australians. Whoever had done it, I`d have been thrilled, But for Bob to do it was unbelievable. It`s called Botham`s Test for all sorts of good reasons, but the game was won by Bob`s bowling. What did it feel like for you that day?

Willis: The overwhelming sensation was one of relief. It was the second time I`d fought back from a serious knee injury and if we`d lost that game, it would almost certainly have been the end of my England career. People forget, but I wasn`t selected to play at Headingley originally. We`d lost the first Test at Trent Bridge, followed by a fairly tedious draw at Lord`s. I played with the flu when I probably shouldn`t have done and was left out for the third Test.

When Alec Bedser, the chairman of the selectors, rang the Warwickshire dressing-room on the morning the team was announced to explain that Willis had been dropped because of doubts over his fitness, the bowler promised to prove his worth by turning out for Warwickshire 2nd XI . . .

Willis: On my say so, Alec phoned the Derbyshire secretary to intercept Mike Hendrick`s invitation to play in that match.

Tyler: And the rest, as they say, is history.

Willis: But it looked as though we were down and out. On the Saturday night we went to Ian Botham`s for a barbecue because Sunday was a rest day. `How long are you going to stay in first-class cricket now you won`t be playing for England any more?` was the main topic of conversation. On Monday morning we got back to Leeds and checked out of the hotel because the match was bound to finish before lunch. Then Ian did his stuff and once [Mike] Brearley got me on at the right end - downhill with the wind - things happened rather rapidly on the Tuesday. I was just sorry to leave Ian stranded on 149 not out, I think it was. Though I must say my contribution of two was very well manufactured.

Yet although he captained his country, Willis was but a chorusline member of the Surrey schools side led by chum . .

Willis: Tell him what kind of batsman you were, Zap

Tyler: A blocker.

Willis: Imagine, if you can, a taller version of Boycott.

Tyler: The rest of us can only dream about playing for our country, what does it mean to a player?

Willis: It`s difficult to exp-

ress . . . erm . . . I can remember vividly pulling on the sweater with the crown and three lions for the first time and spending the entire day looking down thinking, `This can`t be me`. And that feeling never left me. I was rightly criticised for not pulling out all the stops all the time in county cricket, but whenever I was playing for England it meant the whole world to me.

Tyler: For me, the nearest thing I can experience to what Bob has experienced is commentating on England. I`m lucky enough to have been doing it 15 years now. I don`t have any emblems to look down on but if I continue to be selected by Sky I`ll pass 100 England commentaries this summer and that will mean a great deal to me, if and when that happens.

Willis: How many are you on now, then?

Tyler: I don`t want to tempt fate . . .

Willis: Oh, come on . . .

Tyler: Let`s say I`m close.

Willis: How close?

Tyler: If selected - and I`ll have to recheck - but I believe tomorrow`s international against South Africa at Old Trafford is number 98.

Buddies-in-arms for three decades or more, Tyler and Willis stood enjoined in battle on one notorious occasion . .

Tyler: I went back to RGS Guildford to play for the Past against the Present during Bob`s last year at school. I went in at No 6 needing two runs to win and with four balls remaining of Bob`s over. What did my best pal do? Put it this way, I`ve still got the four separate bruises. But that was nothing compared to the pain of listening to his Dylan records. What was that really dirgy one you used to like? [sings badly] `Ah ain`t gonna work on Maggie`s farm, no more . .

Willis: Better than `Patches`.

Tyler: Brilliant stuff. `I was born and raised in Alabama on a farm way back up in the woods; my clothes were so ragged they used to call me Patches . . . `

Willis (remembering Tyler`s wardrobe then): Well that bit was right . . .

And there, sadly, we must leave them; Oscar and Felix, still laughing, still bickering, still crazy after all these years .

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)