He has been a mentor and father figure to South Africans coming to Northampton Saints for decades, including Garry Pagel, Corne Krige, Victor Matfield, Cobus Reinach and David Ribbans. Heinrich Brussow, the former Springbok flanker, used to call him ‘oom’, which is Afrikaans for uncle. Meet Allan Lamb, the England cricket legend and one of Northampton’s most unlikely secret weapons ahead of their Premiership final against Bath at Twickenham on Saturday.
Lamb’s association with the club can be traced back to his arrival in England in 1978 after signing for Northamptonshire as an unknown overseas player. Raised in Cape Town, his parents were both English and the flamboyant middle-order batsman made his Test debut in 1982, the first of 79 caps. He would go on to captain England in three Tests during an international career that included 14 dashing centuries and a brilliant international one-day record.
Yet the 69-year-old, who made over 600 appearances for Northamptonshire during 18 seasons before his retirement in 1995, reveals that rugby was his preferred sport at school, a passion that has remained undiminished with time and led to him offering his unofficial services as a mentor to the Saints players.
“I prefer watching rugby to cricket,” Lamb tells Telegraph Sport. “I always have. Rugby was my number-one sport at school. I loved it. I played fly-half or centre and captained all the sides as well as the cricket teams.
“If you gave me the option to watch Saints play in the final on Saturday or England playing in a Test match, I would go to the final. I love my outdoor sports. If you asked me if I wanted to go shooting or fishing, give me fly-fishing on the river any time. You ask me about cricket? No, no, no, I would rather go and watch rugby.”
He played rugby for the South African Air Force during his national service and was selected to play for his provincial side in the prestigious Craven Week schools’ competition and for the Western Province Under-20s side.
His own rugby career came to an end with the opportunity to play professional cricket, although he still managed to turn out a few times for Northampton Old Scouts, the club that produced the likes of Courtney Lawes, Steve Thompson and Ben Cohen.
“There was a guy called Colin Richardson who played fly-half and for some reason he couldn’t play so I started,” he says. “He always used to kick the ball and never passed, and the winger came up to me and said they would kill me if I passed it! Murray Holmes, who went on to join the board at Saints, said, ‘Get rid of that ball, I don’t want to see it again!’ They were great days.”
There was also a close relationship between the rugby and cricket clubs in Northampton. Lamb says when the rugby season finished, the Saints players were regularly invited to the County Ground to watch county cricket, which cemented his relationship with the club.
When South African players began to arrive at Franklin’s Gardens, Lamb began to entertain them at his house for a ‘braai’ to help them settle in the area.
“I guess it started with Garry Pagel and ever since the South Africans have tended to come here for a barbecue. The guys would come, sometimes with their agents and some who didn’t have agents, and I would speak to them about living here,” he says.
“I have always tried to keep them here, but things happen in rugby and they have to go where the best deal is. But most of them have come up and we have fed them and had a bit of fun. It is probably nice being away from home to get a bit of home cooking. One time Heinrich Brussow came and he said, ‘Oom, which means uncle, I’ll do the cooking, you sit back and relax’. I did just that and he did the whole braai for us. He was a fantastic lad.
“Joe van Niekerk came but then went [he had been due to join the club in 2007 but his contract was cancelled before he arrived because of injury problems] and ended up at Toulon. What a player he was. We missed out on him.”
Lamb became good friends with the former Saints and England lock David Ribbans before his move to Toulon (Lamb’s grand-daughter was Ribbans’ god-daughter) but his mentorship has not been limited to those players with South African backgrounds.
“Back in the day we were close with the likes of Paul Grayson, who was a very good cricketer, as well as Tim Rodber, Matt Dawson, Nick Beal and Martin Bayfield,” he adds.
“I saw Jon Sleightholme recently and said, ‘Your son [Ollie] leaves you for dead’, but he said, ‘No, no, I was quicker than he is!’
“Alex Mitchell sometimes comes to the house with some of the other players, too. One time Schalk Burger was over on a school cricket tour and he was staying in some clapped-out place and so I went and picked him up so he could stay here. He came back years later when he was at Saracens with Schalk Brits and Cobus Reinach.”
Lamb will be at Twickenham on Saturday and is hopeful that Phil Dowson’s side can lift their first title since 2014 to give an appropriate send-off to the departing Lawes and Lewis Ludlam.
“When you have such a great servant like Lawes leaving, the players want to get him such a great send-off, so this is massive for them,” Lamb says. “They are all fighting for each other, which is amazing.”
