1927, a shorter season

posted by John Winn

The forecast for Oxford on Thursday is dry with some sunshine, light cloud and 14 degrees Celsius. This should make both playing and watching cricket tolerable when Oxford University take on Gloucestershire in a one day friendly in The Parks. To say that such an inauspicious match marks the start of the cricket season will invite derision from many and I wrote a year ago about the stuttering start the English  summer game makes compared with its American cousin. But had I been in the Oxford area on Thursday, which I will not be, I would have been very happy to join what is likely to be a small but discerning crowd and make the first entry in my 2017 cricket diary, First class cricket will begin on March 28th, three days earlier than last year, when the MCC Universities take on county opposition. See our previous posting for all the early season fixtures.

So the season begins earlier and earlier, championship matches on April 7th, and yet stumps will not be drawn for the last time until almost the end of September with the ultimate round of county matches not beginning until the 25th of that month. All of which would have seemed incredible to our forefathers for whom cricket, at whatever level, was essentially played from the beginning of May to the end of August. With this in mind I have consulted my copy of Wisden for 1927, price five shillings, to see what the cricket season looked like 90 years ago.

1927, when Vera Lynn was 10, George V was on the throne, Stanley Baldwin was PM, the average house cost £619, an Atco mower from 30 guineas, Cardiff City beat Arsenal in the FA Cup Final, 1-0,

Wisden's five cricketers of the year were Bill Woodfull, Bill Oldfield, Harold Larwood, George Geary and John Mercer and less than 1p would get you your copy of  The Westminster Gazette, 'best morning paper for all sports'. The season began with cricket at Fenner's on April 27th, 'Seniors' Match', and the championship three days later when champions Lancashire entertained Warwickshire at Old Trafford. Yorkshire became Cambridge's first opponents the following week and on April 7th followed in Doctor Foster's footsteps with a trip to Gloucester. Highlights of that match were a stand of 274 between Holmes and Sutcliffe and a century for Wally Hammond and victory for Yorkshire by an innings and 21 runs. After Gloucester, Major Lupton's* men went to Cardiff and began their home campaign at Dewsbury with the return match with Gloucestershire, another innings victory. This marked the beginning of a run of six home matches, with Hull, Sheffield and Huddersfield among the venues.

The visitors that year were New Zealand, not yet considered worthy of test status. They began with a match against Hubert Martineau's XI on his private ground in Berkshire and finished off playing Leveson-Gower's side at Scarborough on September 10th (2 days). In between they had visited, among other places, Kettering, Broughty Ferry, Galshiels, Chiswick, Whitehaven and Wisbech. The championship just squeaked into September with games at Hove and Swansea beginning on August 31st, Lancashire retained their title, I never promised an easy read, with Notts second. There was of course no 'white ball cricket', and the season finished with its traditional festivals at Scarborough and Folkestone. For those within striking distance of North Marine Road, the programme comprised Yorkshire v MCC, Gentlemen v Players, MCC South African XI v Mr CI Thornton's XI and the tourists match. Only the third of these appears to have been affected by the weather. Not a bad cricketing holiday.

*Major Lupton, Yorkshire's amateur captain, played in 29 championship matches that year, went to the crease 23 times and scored 168 runs at an average of 8.84. He was replaced at the end of the season by Herbert Sutcliffe, a decision to which 'exception was taken by some members' who objected to the notion of a professional captain or would have preferred Rhodes. Sutcliffe cabled from South Africa to turn down the offer and the committee turned instead to Captain William Worsley, who had previously declined the captaincy in 1924 for business reasons. He did a little better than Lupton, but not much, and stood down after two seasons when he was replaced by Alan Theodore Barber shown below with his parents in 1929 after a game as captain of Oxford University

Copyright O Clissold