As far back as the 31st March 2014 in a posting I made welcoming the start of another season I quoted from the poet Horace. Over the next few days this sparked some of Headingley's finest brains to think of Horaces who had played cricket. Tony came up with Horace Fisher of Yorkshire and Horace Hazell of Somerset and I put a couple of short accounts of these two men's careers on the blog. To my surprise and quite by chance I came across another Horace, a Yorkshire man no less, when thumbing the 1964 Wisden for on page 954 was the obituary of one Horace Rudston who had died in April 1962, aged 82.
Born in Hessle where he also died Horace played as a professional for Yorkshire from 1902 to 1907. It is perhaps significant that his obituary appeared a year late for he did not set the broad acres on fire. Scoring 609 runs in 21 games for the county 269 of which were in one match against Leicestershire in 1904, 164 runs in the first innings. But Wisden, in the eight lines they spared for his belated obituary drew attention to what they describe as an 'eventful' match at Bristol in 1906.
In today's hyperbolic world 'eventful' would not do the game justice. Played on the 23rd, 24th and 25th of August Gloucestershire batted first and were bowled out for 164 with William Ringrose taking five wickets including that of Jessop and FH Bateman-Champain* top scoring with 42. Yorkshire responded in similar vein conceding a five run deficit with left arm spinner George Dennett opening the bowling and taking 8 for 86 . The west countrymen fared a little better in their second innings with Jessop hitting 34 in almost even time and Hirst accounting for five thus leaving Yorkshire 234 to win. Despite 52 from Wilfred Rhodes Yorkshire were five down for 119 with Dennett, who bowled unchanged again, having three to his name when Rudston was joined by skipper Ernest Smith with whom he added 66 until Horace, attempting to square cut Jessop hit his wicket. Yorkshire were not done for and when Hunter was ninth out victory was not out of the question with just 11 needed. Nine of those were gathered by Myers and Ringrose before the latter was lbw to Jessop, the croucher's 750th first class wicket. Thus Gloucestershire won by one run, for which they were awarded one point while Yorkshire were deducted one.
Yorkshire played one more championship game that season, v Somerset at Bath which they won by 389 runs, George Hirst a century in each innings, for which gave them another point which left them level on points with Kent who had won their last eleven fixtures. With counties playing different numbers of matches Kent's higher percentage gave them the first of four championships they were to win before the first world war intervened.
In what might so easily have become 'Rudston's match' over three hundred overs were bowled, more than 77 of them by Denning, without his skipper once having to suggest he take a spell. George was no stranger to hard work for he bowled over 1000 overs that season taking 160 wickets including a tenfor against Essex at Bristol. The umpires were Messrs Millward and West but which one of them gave Ringrose out lbw and so virtually hand the title to Kent we shall probably never know.
* The Bateman-Champains were something of a cricketing family with five brothers playing in the XI at Cheltenham College. An Oxford Blue, Francis Henry would have played more for Gloucestershire had it not been for his duties as a schoolmaster at Wellington and Cheltenham. He hit a hundred for the university against the 1899 Australians and played
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