Five go missing at Aylestone Road

posted by John Winn

For most people Leicestershire cricket means cricket at Grace Road but it has not always been thus. It began there in 1878 and Yorkshire were the visitors for the first first class game ion 1894 but crowds in those early days, as now, were small and in 1900 the county club moved nearer to the city centre and set up headquarters at Aylestone Road where they were to remain until the second World War. During the war the ground was damaged and as a temporary measure The Foxes went back to Grace Road, by this time better served by public transport, when cricket resumed in 1944

Plans to return to Aylestone Road were foiled by the decision of Leicester Corporation to expand the adjacent electricity works; the ground is played on today by Leicester Electric Sports CC. Its playing area is greatly reduced but Leicestershire did play two championship matches there in 1957 and as late as 1962 Cambridge University were the visitors in for what was almost certainly the last first class match. Alan Wharton and David Kirby made runs for the homesters* and two later England captains, AR Lewis and JM Brearley, made 84 and 68 respectively for the students. The Foxes were just 15 short of victory when stumps were drawn. Kirby, whose name is very much associated with cricket at St Peter's York, was the last man to be dismissed when out for 88. Whether smuts from the power station, a frequent hazard at the ground, got in his eye is not known.

By 1966 LCCC had taken over ownership at Grace Road from the city's education department and in 'The Wisden Guide To Cricket Grounds' published in 1990, the ground is described as 'perhaps one of the best equipped grounds on the county circuit other than test match grounds', a description few would apply to it today but I am saddened a little that it is not on my itinerary for 2014 nor is it likely to be so until Somerset or Warwickshire are the visitors. If the Leicestershire authorities so wished this year they could celebrate 120 years since it first hosted county cricket. Somehow I doubt it will but if they do then they could recall a victory in the game  in May 1894 when Leicestershire overcame Yorkshire by 47 runs, bowling the visitors out for 47 in their second innings.

My recent interest in Leicestershire's two main grounds stems for reading this last week a biography of PGH Fender, one of the most colourful characters in county cricket between the wars. Fender's imaginative captaincy did not always endure him to the game's rulers at that time and his biographer Richard Streeton suggests that it may have cost him the England captaincy. The link to the title of tis posting comes from a match played at Aylestone Road in June 1920, a game not mentioned in Lambert's history of Leicestershire CCC, but described as 'remarkable' in Wisden and in some detail in Streeton's book, and won by Surrey before tea on the second day. A Hobbs century on Wednesday was the basis of Surrey's first innings 309, a total that Leicestershire could not surpass in two innings. Not particularly 'remarkable' you might think, even with the knowledge that Hobbs scored 134 in 95 minutes, but the circumstances that led the editor of Wisden to get excited began when Fender was called to London after the first day on urgent business handing the captaincy to a reluctant Hobbs. Surrey's Rushby, who had taken seven wickets in the first innings, was prevented by a side strain from bowling more than two overs in the second innings and three Leicestershire batsmen were 'absent hurt' on the second day. What caused these injuries is not recorded but perhaps Wednesday had been a particularly smutty day at the power station. Fender returned to the ground on the Thursday afternoon to find it deserted and Surrey on their way back to London. I like the idea, purely a figment of my imagination, that the train carrying the captain from London to Leicester passed that conveying his victorious team in the opposite direction.

* spell check does not like this word but as it offers hamsters as an alternative I have left it in.