Date-stamped : 13 Jun96 - 22:16 14 June 1996 Emburey back on Lord`s beat England spinner enthused by new job. Mark Nicholas reports JOHN EMBUREY will be 44 in August. Almost 10 years ago in Aus- tralia he thought that he had two or three years of Test cricket in him and that he would like to play county cricket until he was 40. Anyway, he said then, who else is there? Who else indeed, which still applies now. Grubby from sweat and windswept by the vile weather at Northamp- ton on Tuesday, he sat in his office, the little coach`s room on the players` balcony, and talked about his new life as a player- coach. The thing about talking to Emburey is that once he starts he never stops. By the time he finished the dressing rooms were locked so he went home in his flannels. He was back in the morning, organising fielding practice and adding his own brand of unforgiving opinion, formed through the eyes of Titmus and Murray, Parfitt, Brearley and Gatting, to the think-tank of Rob Bailey and Curtly Ambrose. Forty-three is old to be a-whoopin` and a-hollerin` with Ambrose and friends, but whoop and holler they did as Northamptonshire engineered the brave defeat of the experts, Warwickshire, on Wednesday. Nineteen years after he first played in a cup final for Middlesex "Old Ern" is back at Lord`s. It will be like going home, so well does he know the place. He might still be there if a coaching position had come his way but it did not, so he is not, and he has not missed it one jot. For years it had been an uneasy peace anyway, since March 1982 when Middlesex stripped him of the vice-captaincy be- cause of his involvement with the first rebel tour to South Africa. "They had only appointed me four months earlier, no one else was singled out by their club in such a way. He says he will retire at the end of the season to ensure that he can focus properly on his role as coach. "Perhaps I`d have captained England earlier if I`d been captain of Middlesex after `Brealers`. Gatt has done a great job, so there is no animosity with him, but the whole issue still rankles," he says. Middlesex should have let him go at the end of last summer, of course they should, but instead they insisted that he became a List One player, a contested registration, if he was going to play as well as coach. He was disappointed he said, felt they owed him that break. Life is different now, for one thing the players in the Northants dressing room listen to him "only because they don`t yet know my threshholds of patience," he laughs; and for another he gets to play a big part in the direction of the club - "not so much on first team selection, we do that together, more on overall strategy". He says he will retire at the end of the season to ensure that he can focus properly on his role as coach. He says it is diffi- cult to keep his own game in order and keep an eye on everyone else`s too. "I was never very fit but I`m now even shorter on puff than before," admits a man who frequently drove his car from the pavilion to the Nursery End for a net. "If you haven`t got any muscles, you can`t pull any muscles," he used to say. "We`ve got some very good young players here and it is hard work justifying my position in the side at their expense. The bat- ting is especially good with David Sales, David Roberts and Alec Swann all needing first-class cricket. My challenge is to get them in the side." It was tempting, he confessed, to play on next season justifying Northants` faith and infuriating Middlesex, but he thought it de- feated the real object of coming. Though the atmosphere at his new county was more relaxed than at his old - "the com- mittee are much closer to the players which is a good thing" - they were very, very ambitious to win the championship for the first time so he wanted to develop and shape a championship-winning team. The characters were different here and he was pleased, he says, to have seen them up close, on the field, where he could appreciate who had the brains, the guts or the calm under pressure. He mentioned that was he approached for the the England job, but he said he thought David Lloyd was "a perfect choice" since his sense of fun and enthusiasm would give the England team an injection of confidence. Northants are unbeaten in one-day matches this season and Emburey has been ever-present. He is a mean bowler, a battler who recog- nises the main chance in the style of a street-wise Cockney. He spins the ball when it needs to be spun, bowls a swinger and a drifter, but his basic rule is to nag away, forcing his opponent to fret until something breaks. HE is a thorough, hard-nosed cricketer and to see him huggin` and kissin` as wickets tumbled while he bowled through the tense final overs on Wednesday morning was to see a conservative character plucked from previous security and moved by his in- volvement with a new challenge. Anyway he had got them there in the first place, sucking the life out of Kent`s charge in the quarter-final, taking five for 24 and winning the gold award. He mentioned that was he approached for the the England job, but he said he thought David Lloyd was "a perfect choice" since his sense of fun and enthusiasm would give the England team an injection of confidence. He would not have taken it anyway be- cause he preferred to honour the four-year contract he signed with Northants. He was inexperienced in coaching and relatively inexperienced in man management so he was probably quite ready anyway, he thought. He had though enjoyed the England A tour to Pakistan. "Having done it once I would do it better if given another go. Nasser Hussain impressed me as player and leader enormous- ly, and although one or two let themselves down by not working hard enough and by not always respecting the traditions of the country they were visiting, overall the boys played very well. I think we should take two coaches on A tours. Perhaps one of the younger selectors such as Gooch should come, since we are preparing these cricketers to go on and play for England." For the time being chatty, honest John Emburey will prepare for Northants. "In many ways things are much the same as at Middlesex here but in others they are very different. I`ll tell you what was a shock: the second team were given a day off when the first team were playing at home, a day off I ask you. "Well, my cricketing education was to be in the nets, all day, every day, bowling at the best players, so these young Northants boys will be doing the same. They come in now, I`ll tell you." I bet they do "Ern", I bet they do. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http.//www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by Shash (shs2@*.cwru.edu)