"For F.J. Titmus read Titmus, F.J."

There is a famous cricket story from the days when a strict divide was maintained between amateurs and professionals. It maintains that there was once an announcement at Lord's that ran:

"For F.J. Titmus read Titmus, F.J."

The point was that amateurs had their initials placed before their names and professionals had them afterwards.

I have always suspected this story is apocryphal, but in his My Life in Cricket Fred Titmus confirms it is true and dates it to a match between the MCC and Surrey which took place in May 1950.

Thanks to CricketArchive I can show you the match scorecard. It was quite an achievement for Titmus to be picked for an MCC side that was not far short of test strength at the age of only 17.