Keith Johnson

Keith Ormond Edley Johnson MBE (born 1895, died 19 October, 1972) was an Australian cricket administrator, best known for being the manager of the Australian tour of England in 1948, the side that became known as "The Invincibles". [Cite web
url = http://content-www.cricinfo.com/australia/content/story/131257.html
title = Invincible
publisher = Cricinfo
accessdate = 2007-11-29
date = 12 May, 2003] The 1948 Australian cricket team was the first side ever to complete a tour of England without losing a single match, hence earning their sobriquet.

But Johnson's career in cricket administration was tarnished by his involvement in the libel case brought by cricketer Sid Barnes in 1952 over Barnes' exclusion from the Test team in the series against the West Indies in the previous Australian cricket season.

Cricket administrator

Johnson joined the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket in 1935 as a delegate for New South Wales. He was affiliated with the Mosman club in Sydney Grade Cricket.

During the World War II, he served in the Royal Australian Air Force as a Flight Lieutenant doing public relations work in London and he managed the Australian Services team on its tour of Britain, India and Australia during 1945–46. He then helped to arrange the first post-war tour of Australia by the England cricket team in 1946–47.

The 1948 tour

Johnson was a late appointment as manager for the 1948 tour of England, taking over from his New South Wales colleague Bill Jeanes, who was secretary of the Australian Board of Control and had managed the 1938 Australian tour in England.

Johnson was praised by "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack" in its report of the tour in the 1949 edition.Cite book
title = Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
edition = 1949
publisher = Wisden
chapter = Australians in England, 1948
pages = p211] "Indebtedness for the smooth running of the tour and general harmony of the team was due largely to the manager, Mr Keith Johnson, hard-working and always genial," it said. "Paying tribute to the loyalty of the players, Mr Johnson said there had not been a discordant note in the party throughout the tour."

In the light of subsequent events, Johnson's singling out as the highlight of the tour a meeting with the British Royal Family was perhaps significant. In a "farewell message" to England quoted in Wisden he said that the "most lasting memory" would be the visit of the team to Balmoral. "We felt we were going into an Englishman's home and into his family heart," he said. "It was difficult to believe that we were being entertained by Royalty. My personal wish would be for everybody in the Empire to spend an hour or so with the King and Queen. It would do them a tremendous amount of good."

The Barnes libel case

Johnson's claim of tour harmony and loyal players in 1948 was thrown into a different light by events less than four years later. The opening batsman Sid Barnes was first included, and then excluded, from the Australian team to play the West Indies in the home series of 1951–52. According to Barnes' own account [Cite book
author = Sid Barnes
title = "It Isn't Cricket"
edition = 1953
publisher = Collins
chapter = "Barnes In — Barnes Out!"
pages = p193–207] , the cricketer heard that he had been picked by the selection panel chaired by his former captain, Donald Bradman, but that his selection had then been vetoed by the Australian Board of Control for reasons "outside of cricket". The matches took place and Barnes did not play. Barnes was unable to find out why he had been excluded, and was resigned to making an appearance before the board at its next meeting in September 1952 to ask for an explanation.

"Then appeared a letter in the Sydney Daily Mirror. It was from a Mr J. L. Raith, of Stanmore (Sydney), and it was subsequent to a letter from Mr Stacy Atkin a friend of mine condemning the Board for its action," Barnes wrote. [Cite book
author = Sid Barnes
title = "It Isn't Cricket"
edition = 1953
publisher = Collins
pages = p207]

Raith's letter said that the Board must have had good reason to exclude Barnes. It said: "It must be abundantly clear to all that they would not have excluded Mr Barnes from an Australian Eleven capriciously and only for some matter of a sufficiently serious nature." Raith said that the Board might even be trying to protect Barnes and recommended that the cricketer drop the matter.

Instead Barnes sued Raith for libel and engaged a top Sydney lawyer, Jack Shand, to represent him, with the aim of uncovering the reasons for his exclusion. The libel trial, in August 1952, was a sensation, and Keith Johnson, still a member of the Board, was the central figure in it.

It emerged very quickly in the trial that Raith had no particular knowledge of the workings of the Board. [Cite book
author = Sid Barnes
title = "It Isn't Cricket"
edition = 1953
publisher = Collins
chapter = The Board Clean-bowled
pages = p211–222] A series of administrators then came forward to say that there had been reports of misbehaviour by Barnes on the 1948 tour, even though Keith Johnson's official report as manager had made no mention of any disharmony.

Johnson was called as a witness, and under what reads like blunt questioning from Shand, the story came out. Johnson agreed that his written report of the 1948 tour had said that the team had behaved "in a manner befitting worthy representatives of Australia". [Cite book
author = Sid Barnes
title = "It Isn't Cricket"
edition = 1953
publisher = Collins
pages = p216] But in a verbal report he said he had drawn the Board's attention to various misdemeanours by Barnes that he considered were sufficiently serious to warrant his exclusion from future Australian Test sides. The misdeeds were taking pictures as the Australian team was presented to the Royal Family in the Test match at Lord's, asking permission to travel alone in England (Barnes' family was living in Scotland at the time), and taking twelfth man Ernie Toshack off to play tennis during the match at Northampton "300 yards from the pavilion". There had also been an incident later in Australia where Barnes had vaulted over the turnstiles at Melbourne.

Under cross-examination, Johnson said that taking pictures of the Royal Family at Lord's was the most serious of these misdemeanours. He admitted he had not known that Barnes had permission from the MCC and the Royal Family's protocol chief to do so. But he believed that the cumulative effect of the misdeeds was "just sufficient to disqualify Barnes" and he saw no anomaly in his verbal advice to the Board that had led to Barnes' exclusion being at odds with the written report on the 1948 tour. And he agreed he had also been a member of the New South Wales board that had appointed Barnes as captain of the state side.

Johnson was followed on the witness stand by two of the selectors, who both testified that Barnes had been selected on merit and that they knew no reasons why he should have been excluded.

The libel trial collapsed on its second day. Raith's counsel said it had been his task to prove a plea that the allegation in Raith's letter was true and that Barnes had not been excluded capriciously. "Seldom in the history of libel actions has such a plea failed so completely and utterly," he said. [Cite book
author = Sid Barnes
title = "It Isn't Cricket"
edition = 1953
publisher = Collins
pages = p220]

Aftermath

After the libel trial, Johnson resigned from the Board and played no further part in cricket administration in Australia.Cite book
title = Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
edition = 1973
publisher = Wisden
chapter = Obituary, 1972
pages = p1010] Johnson retained the support of many of the players; six Victorian members of the 1948 team, including Lindsay Hassett, Ian Johnson and Neil Harvey wrote to the "Herald" newspaper in Melbourne expressing their "confidence, respect and affection" for the tour manager. He was described in the history of the New South Wales Cricket Association as a "considerate, patient, inoffensive man for whom nothing was too much trouble. As a cricket official, he was efficient and dedicated."cite book
last=Smith
first=Rick
title=Cricket's Enigma: The Sid Barnes story
year=1999
publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation
location=Sydney
isbn=0 733 0787 6 ]

He was awarded the MBE for services to cricket. He died in 1972 after collapsing when rising to make a speech at a charity lunch in Sydney.

References