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What makes cricketers popular?
Playing international cricket almost always works.
Then there were Hirst and Freeman and Goel and Siddons, domestic giants who did not thrive at the highest level.
There is a third category.
Cult heroes.
One of them, Jim Foat, turns 68 today.
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Playing international cricket almost always works.
Then there were Hirst and Freeman and Goel and Siddons, domestic giants who did not thrive at the highest level.
There is a third category.
Cult heroes.
One of them, Jim Foat, turns 68 today.
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He wore enormous glasses and had that ghastly 1970s hairstyle, but that barely justifies the tremendous fan-following he enjoyed.
Foat's numbers may explain what I am talking about.
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Foat's numbers may explain what I am talking about.
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Foat played 91 First-Class matches from 1972 to 1979, mostly for Gloucestershire. He scored 2,512 runs at 18.60, and neither bowled nor kept wickets.
In fact, he failed to score so often that they nicknamed him PHOTO (Foat 0). But as I said, they loved him.
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In fact, he failed to score so often that they nicknamed him PHOTO (Foat 0). But as I said, they loved him.
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True, he was an excellent fielder (he was often 12th man), but still...
If you think I am going overboard with my surprise, let me explain by citing examples of the adulation he enjoyed (while being unaware).
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If you think I am going overboard with my surprise, let me explain by citing examples of the adulation he enjoyed (while being unaware).
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Dr Simon Eaton, senior lecturer at London's Institute of Child Health, coined a term for an aspect of cellular metabolism: Fat Oxidation Activation Transfer (FOAT) Complex.
(Disclaimer: I am not a domain expert.)
It was not a coincidence.
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(Disclaimer: I am not a domain expert.)
It was not a coincidence.
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"I put the acronym in one of the figures of the paper; I suppose I wanted to impress him."
(source: Wisden Cricket Monthly, 2005)
In the Financial Times, Stephen Pincock suggested that Dr Eaton is "the inventor of the only scientific phenomenon named after a cricket player."
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(source: Wisden Cricket Monthly, 2005)
In the Financial Times, Stephen Pincock suggested that Dr Eaton is "the inventor of the only scientific phenomenon named after a cricket player."
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In Linseed and Fishpaste: Confessions of a Cricket Nut, Mark Bussell elaborated on his target audience: "The people who can answer correctly the question: who is Jim Foat? This book is first and foremost for them."
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The same Bussell wrote that Foat was a "cr*p Gloucestershire cricketer of the early seventies”.
Stow-on-the-Wold, a small market town in Gloucestershire, once saw FOAT FOR ENGLAND painted on a shed. Nobody could figured out the who, why, or when of it.
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Stow-on-the-Wold, a small market town in Gloucestershire, once saw FOAT FOR ENGLAND painted on a shed. Nobody could figured out the who, why, or when of it.
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Even the typically neutral Wisden could not stop themselves from 'trolling' Foat after the 1973 Gillette Cup final: "The agile Foat, aged 20, ran like a gazelle while getting seven in a stand of 49."
Foat batted at 8 that day. A specialist batsman, I remind you.
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Foat batted at 8 that day. A specialist batsman, I remind you.
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Foat is on Twitter.
Or rather, I think this is his id. There is no blue tick.
https://twitter.com/JimFoat
His bio reads "a retired cricketer, spend my days playing the flute and dancing."
His location reads "cover point."
He has not tweeted since June 18, 2011.
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Or rather, I think this is his id. There is no blue tick.
https://twitter.com/JimFoat
His bio reads "a retired cricketer, spend my days playing the flute and dancing."
His location reads "cover point."
He has not tweeted since June 18, 2011.
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He has 42 followers as I type this.
The number that is also part of my Twitter handle.
There, I just sounded like a Foat fan.
I know this thread is becoming weirder and weirder, but he does have an IMDb page.
The number that is also part of my Twitter handle.
There, I just sounded like a Foat fan.
I know this thread is becoming weirder and weirder, but he does have an IMDb page.
