Roy Palmer was a right-arm opening bowler for Somerset whose career only lasted four full seasons,and on retiring he became a groundsman, where he would probably have stayed. "I was happy as a groundsman until the council made me a group groundsman, which meant that I lost my own pitch and had to go off trimming verges here, there and everywhere." Encouraged by his brother, he became a first-class umpire in 1979 and soon made his mark, travelling the circuit not from hotel to hotel but in a mobile home. He stood in his first Test in 1992 and became embroiled in a fierce row with Javed Miandad after it was claimed he had tossed Aquib Javed's sweater to him after he warned the bowler for intimidatory bowling. Palmer stood in one more Test the following summer, as well as eight ODIs.
Cricinfo staff