WE ALL MAKE our prophecies about cricket, remember those which came roughly to pass and conveniently forget the rest. It is part of cricket that there is so much to speculate about. But in 1973 a prophecy was made about the shape of English cricket by the year 2000 which was so close to the mark that one can only say: Eat your heart out, Nostradamus.

`Assuming that the 17 first-class counties will remain in business, and there is no reason bar political change why they should fail, then it seems certain that the County Championship will be a 16-match affair, probably sponsored, and with big prizes for the winner. I do not believe that any other counties will join it nor that anything but talk will come of two divisions.' All right, so Durham have joined, although you could say they have yet to justify their elevation. Otherwise, this forecast – made almost a generation ago, when the competition was not sponsored, and the counties themselves had to stick a couple of hundred quid each into the pot as a prize for the winners – was as accurate as could be. And nobody could have foreseen the Super Cup – nobody in his right mind, that is.

`There will almost certainly be a stabilisation of one-day international matches allied to every tour, and probably at least two World Cup competitions staged in England.' The seer spoke two years before the first World Cup, and four will have been staged in England by the year 2000. `The qualification rules are likely to become less rigid for cricketers who have learnt the game here, and more rigid for those who have not. It would be unrealistic to disregard the possibility that a transfer system of some sort will evolve.' This said when Chris Adams was only three years old.

`Nationalism in cricket is growing fast as Commonwealth ties loosen, and a watch will have to be kept on behaviour on the field under the pressures that crowds, especially in hot countries, generate. It may well prove necessary to examine and revise the method of appointing Test-match umpires and particularly to seek to ensure that standards are raised, and raised to the level of those of the best.' And the idea of an ICC international panel was not even a twinkle in the National Grid's eye.

The prophet who wrote this in The Cricketer in 1973 was Geoffrey Howard, then about to retire as Surrey's secretary You might not have heard of him. If so, that is partly because his first-class career amounted to only three Championship matches, for Middlesex in 1930. But if the title of Best Administrator in English Cricket were ever to be awarded there would be many candidates who would not be worthy of consideration, and few with as good a claim as Geoffrey Howard. And it is partly because he was self-effacing, as well as diligent and acutely perceptive, that his name is not more widely known.

If there was an award for Best Administrator in English Cricket there would be many who would not be worthy of consideration, and few with as good a claim as Geoffrey Howard

 HE WAS secretary of Lancashire from 1949 to 1964, when he moved to Surrey. He managed three England tours, including the Ashes-winning trip of 1954–55. He has been a witness without bias to some of the most important events in English cricket, behind the scenes and in front of them.

From his home near Nailsworth, and now in his 90th year, Geoffrey Howard has a clear view of the Cotswolds and of a lifetime in cricket, dating back to the first match he watched, at The Oval in 1919. But there is no stuffiness. He isn't one of those who are Always Right; he will admit `my mistake' or `that was my fault', as when Cyril Washbrook was made the first manager of a county team ( Lancashire), but with too loose a brief. For fun he wears a brown Surrey shirt which he had made up in 1969, after Chelsea had devised a second strip for their FA Cup run: he wanted Surrey to wear coloured shirts for their Gillette Cup matches. He has usually been ahead of the game.

Not only was the young Howard present at The Oval on that day in 1919, watching Wilfred Rhodes and Rockley Wilson bowling to Jack Hobbs and Donald Knight, but so was Jim Swanton, who was being initiated as well. The following year Howard saw Plum Warner raising his Harlequin cap from the Lord's pavilion when Middlesex took the Championship title. Ten years later he was playing for Middlesex himself, briefly, and batting against Charlie Parker and Tom Goddard on his debut. Gloucestershire's captain, Bev Lyon, was fielding at short leg in a wristwatch (it was not only in his advocacy of one-day cricket that Lyon was far ahead of his time). Or rather Lyon was fielding at short leg until he said to Hammond: `Take over, Wally, I'm going for a haircut.'

 Howard was settling down when he was out in a unusual way, when he edged Goddard's offbreak onto him front pad and was given out lbw. For this was the year when, to encourage bowlers, you could be out lbw even if you had hit the ball. Howard's first-class career did not take off, as he was troubled by offspinners – Vallance Jupp and Goddard again – in his other two games. In London club cricket of those days offspinners were rare. Howard worked and played for Martin's Bank, which was taken over by Barclays in the 1960s. Business-house teams, notably banks, were as strong as the leading clubs in London cricket then, just as in Bombay today. The players would work on Saturdays until midday, then play that afternoon, followed by an all-day game on the Sunday.

Tom Pearce was another member of the Private Banks team, and on meeting up with Howard again

after the Second World War in 1946, told him: `Come and be the secretary at Essex, play a few games and then take over from me as captain.' Nice offer. Howard had served in the RAF, mainly in Egypt, and was finding banking restrictive. The Essex committee had different ideas, but shortly afterwards Brian Castor, Surrey's secretary, needed an assistant at The Oval and Howard got that job. In 1949, when Lancashire advertised for a secretary, Howard moved north with his wife and four children into another world.

He saw the future: Geoffrey Howard now 89, at home in the Cotswolds

 Howard's briefing for his first outing as tour manager consisted of being greeted by an MCC official in London and told: `Good Luck, old chap. Rather you than me. Can't stand Indians myself'

`I was rather out of it, on two counts. Firstly, I was a southerner, or even worse, a Londoner, and secondly I wasn't a mason.' The masons were very strong in Manchester in those days, and at Lancashire. Towering above everyone else at the club was the chairman, Tommy Higson. Howard went in at the deep end when Yorkshire came for the Roses match, and by nine in the morning the crowds stretched back to the other, foot-balling, Old Trafford. The police were urging that the gates be opened, whereas Mr Higson had decreed that the gates be kept closed until his arrival from the Midland Hotel. Howard disobeyed, and authorised the opening. In spite of this he was recommended as manager for England's tour of India and Pakistan in 1951–52.

His briefing for the new job consisted of being greeted by an MCC official in London and told: `Good luck, old chap. Rather you than me. Can't stand Indians myself.' Howard found that he could, which may have helped when the players flew from New Delhi to Pakistan, and the manager happily took their bags by train by himself. Such service contrasts with that of a later England manager on a tour of Pakistan, who waved goodbye to his players as they set off to play in Sahiwal and to stay at the Montgomery Biscuit Factory, then settled back comfortably in his hotel in Lahore.

In the five official Tests the Indians were determined not to lose. The Pakistanis, in their unofficial ones, were determined to win so they would be accepted for full Test status. Thereafter both countries asked Howard to act as their agent in England. This entailed arranging their tours of England (not forgetting all those Pakistan Eaglet teams), their fixtures and accommodation. He did so until the early 1970s, and for free until Walter Robins, the agent for Australia, told him to charge £150.

 SO IT WAS that Howard was chosen to manage the 1954–55 tour of Australia, one of England's finest hours. Three weeks on board ship did the same sort of job as visits to Lanzarote do now. Players got to know each other and bonded, and visualised the common goal ahead. Some of the most extraordinary individuals ever known to English cricket were involved: Len Hutton, the first modern professional captain, intense in his desire to beat Australia after all they had done to him, Peter May, ever cool, walking like a guardsman to mid-on; Colin Cowdrey, who would inject some humour by mimicking May; Bill Edrich, who sailed through life with Compo and without a malicious word; and the hard men Bob Appleyard and Johnny Wardle. Try handling that lot for six months, with an introverted captain utterly dedicated to his task on the field, not a man-manager off it.

More pressingly, on arriving in Perth, Howard went to the bank appointed by MCC to draw out the money to pay for the hotel bills and players' expenses on tour. No trace of any arrangements could be found. Oh dear; it wouldn't look good if the players had to go begging instead of netting. Fortunately for Ashes history, the bank manager advanced Howard a personal overdraft of £10,000, and he went round Australia carrying a briefcase often containing £2000 in ready cash. Wardle would query every bill; it took some insight into human nature to see that he was not actually being mean so much as trying to save whatever he could for his wife and children. `He was a great family man.'

Gradually the epic unfolded. After the Brisbane Test, when Australia were sent in and posted 600, Hutton was overwhelmed: `I looked at the Brisbane River and thought of throwing myself in,' he would say later. Howard had dinner with his captain after the match, along with Abe Waddington, the old Yorkshire bowler who was following the tour. Howard remembers Alec Bedser walking past and saying `Cheer up, Len, the bomb hasn't dropped yet.' But Len brooded on, and on, about the bomb that he would have to drop on Alec, the great bowler who had stood almost alone between England and massive opposing totals since the war.

Well managed: Geoffrey Howard with the Ashes-winning side of 1954–55. Standing (l-r): Harold Dalton (masseur), Colin Cowdrey, Johnny Wardle, Brian Statham, Tom Graveney, Bob Appleyard, Vic Wilson, Jim McConnon, Frank Tyson, Peter Hutton (captain), Geoffrey Howard (manager), Alec Bedser, Bill Edrich, Trevor Bailey

The Second Test at Sydney was won by England– just, by 38 runs – but still Len was weighed down, perhaps depressed. On the first morning of the Third Test at Melbourne, Howard found the captain staring at the wall of his room in the Windsor Hotel, and saying nothing, except that he wanted to see a doctor. Once the doctor had persuaded him to play Hutton went to the MCG, took Bedser out to the middle, returned to the dressing-room and, Ahab-like, posted up the team sheet in silence. It had been done: Bedser was gone.

And the mood didn't lighten as England's top order collapsed, until Cowdrey started to drive so uninhibitedly that Australia had to post two mid-offs, and his hundred swung another low-scoring match. England 2–1 up. But the shops were shut in Melbourne, a stern wowserish city then (or certainly the off-licences were). So Howard scoured the city to find champagne. More was required after England won again at Adelaide– 100 bottles, to be precise.

The following winter Howard was wanted again, to manage the England`A' tour of Pakistan. A controversial one it was too, as the rival captains, Donald Carr and Abdul Hafeez Kardar, had fallen out since their Oxford years. Slight was perceived where none was intended. When the umpire Idries Begh was doused with a bucket of water in Peshawar, the diplomatic exchanges went to the highest level. Shortly afterwards, after the team had won a cricket match in Multan, they played the local football side, with Brian Close at centre-half and treating the game `as if it had been at Wembley'. At half-time Alan Moss, 12th man, came out with two buckets of water and poured them over his fellow players. It was a happy tour, otherwise.

AS SURREY SECRETARY Howard inherited the job of drawing up the first-class fixture list. It was a complicated job until the first computers came along to help around 1970. One of his predecessors at The Oval had asked the help of his son-in-law, a Cambridge don, but was refused as the task was too difficult.

 Howard started drawing up the list for a new season by first filling in the fixtures of the touring team, which he had sometimes arranged himself anyway. Then the MCC fixtures would be filled in, not forgetting – never forgetting – Eton v Harrow. Then the counties' preferences, about festivals for example, would be accommodated if possible, and a provisional list sent out for their perusal. The job involved much working into the night after office hours, and all for no payment. One year the army offered to help by using a new computer it had obtained, and Howard delightedly set off for HQ in Wiltshire. The result was absolute rubbish: everyone knows that Kent have to play Sussex at Tunbridge Wells!

Looking back, Howard is glad to have seen a steady process of de-Etonisation, both in our national politics and in the government of English cricket, where Eton and Harrow used to dictate. Looking ahead, what does this seer prophesy for the future, beyond 2000?

He sees two divisions of equal standing, but composed of cities not counties, as no major sporting competition is based on county lines any more. If domestic cricket is to attract crowds in the next millennium, fixtures will have to be Leeds v Manchester, or Birmingham v London South, as his old club would become. Don't bet against it, Nostradamus.

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