The Return of the Sporting Public Schoolboy

A year or so ago, albeit fancifully, I suggested that with the empire on the wane perhaps the nation's public schools should divert their attention from imperial concerns to global sporting domination. They had the facilities, they had the funds, all they required was a change in emphasis. Why build academies, the argument ran, when everything was already in place? It surely wouldn't be too far-fetched to imagine a time when there might be more public schoolboys in the England football team than the Cabinet.

That day has yet to pass, but there are signs that the joke may become reality quicker than one might have thought. Four of the sporting heroes of last summer - Andrew Strauss, Matthew Pinsent, Tim Henman and Colin Montgomerie - were educated at public schools. And last week, county championship matches were held at Whitgift and Oakham schools; later this month Stowe and King's School, Gloucester (at their Archdeacon Meadow ground) will host matches; as will Cheltenham College in August.

Cricket has been played at Oakham since 1836 and it has produced many fine cricketers. RT King, known as the 'The King of Points', and APF Chapman, who captained the MCC against Australia, were Old Oakhamians. In 1936 and 1938 county matches were held at their ground but, according to John Barber, who wrote in his definitive history: 'The practice was not, however, continued, as too many of the spectators watched over the hedge and thus avoided paying the entrance fee!'

The school was transformed in the early 1970s by headteacher John Buchanan, a man who, writes Barber: 'was ascetic in his habits (he always managed without "elevenses")' Buchanan propounded his philosophy in a book entitled Operation Oakham, published two decades later on his retirement: 'Twenty years ago the Public Schools were becalmed. Little building had taken place since before the war, the curriculum had been relatively stagnant for 50 years, and the general way of life for a hundred. The five Cs - Chapel, Corps, Classics, Cricket and Corporal Punishment - still predominated.'

Buchanan changed all that, taking Oakham out of the direct-grant system and turning it into the first independent school to have an equal number of boys and girls. They only 'C' he had time for was cricket and the impressive sports centre (two swimming pools, myriad squash courts and the rest) bears his name. Facilities are of little use, however, unless you make the most of them.

'The wonderful bonus we have here at Oakham is our award winning groundsman Keith Exton,' explains current head, Dr JAF Spence. 'It's fantastic to meet county and international players who enthuse about coming here to play cricket. It's second to few in the country and those few are Test venues.

'We are not a capsule boarding school. Fifty per cent of the school are day pupils and it has always been part of the Oakham story that we are Oakham's school as well as Oakham School. So this [a four-day match followed by a one-day game] Leicestershire v Somerset is very much Oakham's festival, a time when town and gown can come together.'

The primary purpose of the Festival is to forge links with the community and with Leicestershire (four OOs are currently in the county's academy and, another, Chris Broad's son, Stuart, made his debut last week) rather than make money. 'We need a sunny Sunday to break even,' says Spence.

The school also offers a cricket scholarship. 'The aim is to get hold of one ace every two years,' says Spence. 'They must be able to hold their own academically while aiming at least for county standard.' It has also hosted schools Twenty20 tournaments - 'They might be the big breakthrough in cricket and schooling.'

And, uniquely, it has on its staff two people who played for England against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1976. As the rain buckets down I sit in the Buchanan Sports centre with the two veterans from the match where no England player managed to contribute more than the extras, DS Steele (lbw b Roberts 20, c Roberts b Holding 15) and FC Hayes (c Lloyd b Roberts 0, c Greenidge b Roberts 18). Extras contributed 44.

'They were fairly sharp,' says Hayes. 'Come on, they were very sharp.' 'This is a great school,' adds Steele. 'And we are here to teach the gospel of cricket as it was. To preach simplicity.'

'I came here from a school called Felstead, which is a magnificent cricket school,' says Hayes, who also teaches maths and physics. 'And I didn't even know that Oakham existed. But when I saw the facilities I couldn't believe it. We've got two grounds here on which you could play county cricket.

'Far too much coaching is far too overcomplicated. You can't treat everybody in the same manner. You have to use judgment, not new-fangled methods.'

'Gimmicks, it's called,' says Steele. 'The boys must develop their own method of playing,' says Hayes. 'They must express themselves warts and all. Because they're not saints.' 'They have to do their own thing,' says Steele. 'They've made county cricket complicated through the lack of quality in the coaches.'

The hardest part of their job is finding someone outstanding and polishing his talent, only for it be undermined by someone else. Steele is particularly irked by what happened with Bhargav Modha, a leg-spinner who took 10 for 22 against a strong Tonbridge side, who left Oakham last year to join Terry Jenner's academy. 'Jenner ruined the boy,' he says. 'He's a lovely man who knows so much about cricket, but he tried to get him to bowl like Warne,' says Hayes, 'when he had this lovely, beautiful action like Kumble.'

Neither coach went to public school and both, while proud of their own achievements, would love to see cricket make similar strides within the state system. 'It's my pet hate,' says Hayes. 'I wrote an article in The Cricketer magazine about why cricket misses the state schools. There's no reason for it at all.'

That it does have limited appeal is underlined by the fact that, while only seven per cent of people attend independent schools, 35 per cent of current county cricketers have done so. Whereas you could probably count on one finger of one hand with Frank Lampard written on it the number of England footballers who were privately educated.

Yet that could soon change and it is the other cricket host, Whitgift, where Surrey are taking on Warwickshire, who are leading the way. The school in south London is unique in that they have two former professional footballers on the full-time staff, Colin Pates (ex-Chelsea) and John Humphrey (Crystal Palace). The school have very good contacts with Charlton and Palace and Steve Coppell and Ian Wright have sent their sons there. They are also the second-wealthiest education foundation in the country (after Eton), which allows them to give bursaries to more than a third of the school intake.

One of those Whitgift bursaries was awarded to Victor Moses, an asylum seeker from Nigeria who was recommended to the school by Palace manager Iain Dowie. Moses scored 54 goals as Whitgift made their way to the final of the English Schools Cup, a match that finished Whitgift 5 (Moses 5), Healing College Grimsby 0.

'It would be fun if we started to produce a new breed of footballer,' says headteacher Christopher Barnett. 'If we could have a cohort of footballers coming through who had stayed on at school until they were 18. You could have a completely fresh role model, there is absolutely no reason why it should be set in stone.'

After Lampard, Moses. The Public Schoolboys, after a break of a century, could be on their way back.

Cricket's big names pick their favourite grounds

Alec Stewart

Horsham: 'A good wicket. I scored 100s there'; Cheltenham:'My debut'; and Guildford .

Jonathan Agnew

Chesterfield: 'Beautiful ground with the bent spire and the ball would bounce there for fast bowlers'; Tunbridge Wells and Scarborough.

Angus Fraser

Basingstoke: 'Once took a hatful of wickets there'; Tunbridge Wells and Abergavenny.

Simon Hughes

Durham's Racecourse ground: 'The university played there; beautiful ground, great memories'; Abbeydale Park; Sheffield: 'Good beer'; and Cheltenham.

Paul Allott

Cheltenham: 'Good bounce, good beer, good hospitality'; Southport and Maidstone

Mike Gatting

Scarborough: 'Quaint seaside ground. Good fish and chips'; Cheltenham and Southend.

Derek Pringle

Folkestone: 'Early finish guaranteed'; Lytham St Annes and Colchester

Vic Marks

The Parks, Oxford, Scarborough and Arundel.