That's all very well, Mr Douglas, but what am I 'ere for?

Barnes was supposed to be a 'difficult' sort of person. Leonard Tim Hector takes up the cudgel on his behalf in a article below. Also John Arlott on Barnes and below that a extract from 'SF Barnes - His Life and Times' by Andrew Searle.

Leonard Tim Hector:

In the time of S.F. Barnes "The players had no union to protect them, so that they were more or less compelled to accept whatever wage their counties thought reasonable, and the counties were governed by autocratic amateurs who treated the professionals with the kindly condescension that they reserved for their domestic servants, gardeners and local tradesmen. And it was this that made S.F. Barnes see red. His trouble, at root, was that he demanded equality of opportunity and the abolition of class distinctions, fifty or sixty years before the country, and at a time when the lot of the vast majority was docile servitude."

S.F. Barnes, a child of an empire, on which it was said the sun would never set, like me, came from a game where docile servitude prevailed, in the case of my society, for more than 300 years. It gave way, in the end, producing that kindly condescension of autocratic rulers, and known in history as patronage. In political independence, the ruling autocrats, in the dictatorship of Cabinet, dispense patronage as a cover for their own corruption. And, for the maintenance of power. S.F. Barnes, on the cricket field used his great gifts to rebel against that system. He belongs in that special category, the lonely rebel – with a cause. His lonely example, would spark similar passions in others who came after, who did not even know of him.

Not infrequently and again in rare moments when the partisans of docility, patronage and corruption, of either side here, are baying at my heels I am reminded by S.F. Barnes, that the common people will not abide domination, from multinational, transnationals, or home-grown autocrats dispensing patronage under the umbrella of corruption. S.F. Barnes enlarges and sharpens my philosophical frame from which I see the world, in general, and in particular.

S.F. Barnes, would in no circumstances accept a pay cut, to make corruption more corrupt. No way José. S.F. Barnes, in such circumstances refused to play for club, for county, or for England. For he knew the difference between oppression and the patriotism that rulers appealed to, to keep the old oppression going, if not intensifying.

(just scroll down in the page that the above url leads to get to the relevant part on Barnes)

+++ Andrew Searle on Barnes +++

"JWHT Douglas was the type of gentleman captain whose decision whether to bat or bowl on the morning of a game was not based on any scientific analysis of the wicket, nor on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, but rather on his own predilection either to hit a few balls or to turn his arm over a few times.Sydney Barnes, as one of the most experienced players on the team, was soon to disabuse him of this preposterously amateur notion. For, when Douglas led out the England team for his first Test match on that sunny Sydney morning on December 15th 1911, he decided - much to the horror and amazement of Sydney Barnes - to partner his fellow amateur Frank Foster in England's new ball attack. Barnes' riposte was to give Douglas his first lesson in the Divine Right of Barnes: 'That's all very well, Mr Douglas, but what am I 'ere for?'

"If any of quotes can be said to sum up the man it is this ostensibly quizzical remark. Sydney Barnes, the experienced professional, was nonplussed by his captain's lack of grasp of the obvious: that he, the master bowler, was the only player capable of using that new ball with the ultimate goal of winning the Ashes. And he was unafraid to tell his supposed better this self-evident truth. When one looks at old photographs of that 1911/12 touring team one sees a different Sydney Barnes from those of the early 1900's when he was a regular county cricketer with Lancashire. Gone is the fierce moustache and the permanent scowl, a product no doubt of the under-paid and cynical professional cricketer's life. Instead, it is a relaxed glare; arms and legs folded, right over left. He is seated at the end of the front row alongside his colleague and equal Wilfred Rhodes - previously the sole preserve of the gentleman amateur. It is a confident pose; the pose of a man who knows his rightful place in society; the bearing of the newly-enfranchised and represented labour aristocracy: a great man at peace with the world in which he was a first among equals."

++++

John Arlott on Barnes
So often the batsman could not even edge a catch. Hence the classic Sydney Barnes story of the day when two tail-enders were playing at him and missing or, occasionally, snicking, and he stalked away at the end of the over with the comment `They aren't batting well enough to get out.' ...No batsman even dared to claim that he was Barnes's master. Asked which of them he found most difficult he answers `Victor Trumper'. Who next? `No one else ever troubled me.'