Selectors really felt the pinch in 1955 both in lack of players and transport. In a second team Sunday fixture at Southgate, Phillips had to transport a whole eleven – they had been four short in the morning – plus umpire and scorer in his car and on new player John Curry’s motor-bike to Southgate and back.
But a ‘five-mile rule’ which allowed anyone living within a five-mile radius of Radlett to play for the Club was introduced in 1955 and was to have dramatic results in the late ’50s.