Good Arthur Milton

In those fresh, expectant springtimes of long ago, the last week of April was the very quintessence of the changeover — the week he would have bid adieu to the raucous wintery fever-pitch of Highbury and its stately marble halls, sling his football boots into his London landlady’s cupboard, and whistle chirpily down to Paddington and the train back to Temple Meads, home, and the mellow warm westerlies of a pastoral Gloucestershire summer. Although the news was a dreadful shock, it was touchingly apt, somehow, that it was in the telling last week of April in which good Arthur Milton died. Next birthday would have been his 80th. He embodied that ritual of the seasons. We shall never see his like — ever — for Arthur was obviously the last of an exceptional line: only a dozen men have ever played professionally for England at both football and cricket. Gentle Arthur was one of the giants of my boyhood.