Mexborough and Swinton Times April 6, 1928
A Happy Man
In the “Leeds Mercury,” Mr Hugh Whitfield writes: “The sadness of Roy Kilner’s death will be with us all the season. We shall not be able to look at the team in the field without thinking of him, for his jaunty, genial personality was such a very big thing in the side .
When shall we miss him- most? Perhaps when Yorkshire are batting., and we shall not be able to look forward to seeing that little square figure walking to the crease one shoulder drawn up a little higher than the other, his cap tilted over one eye, and his bat swinging from that thick forearm of his.
His actual batsmanship, too, was a very special part of Yorkshire’s cricket. If the side has lacked anything in its greatest years since the war it has been the aggressive type of batsmen, with a little of the ‘ smash and risk it ” spirit.
Roy alone could show us it and that was just why we had a pleasurable thrill when he came out to bat. We saw the other side’s captain move third man very deep and square until he became almost a point on the boundary and we looked forward to that flash of Roy’s wrists- which made this particular fieldsman such a busy man.
In his bowling, too, we found the same happiness. It. was pleasant to look upon with its easy action and flick of a loose wrist. And Roy was one of the, few men who could enjoy bowling a bad ball. Sometimes, when be bas been trying to do something special in the way of spin, the result has been the most elementary of long hops and Roy’s face has wrinkled with smiles and his shoulders have shaking with laughter even as the ball has being crashed for four.
Men he played against loved him. Nobody was more delighted than the Middlesex team when they helped him to his record benefit at Headingly. Did not F.T. Mann, the visiting captain, meet him as he came into bat and walked arm in arm with him to the wicket?
Roy Kilner was a true successor to “Schof” Hague, sunniest tempered of men and jolliest of companions in the pavilion on a wet summers day.
It is the greatest tribute we can pay to Kilner to say that even his rare and superlative gifts as a Test Match cricketer forgotten in the sorrow we feel at losing such a splendid loyal hearted Yorkshireman.