Nostalgia yet again

 Posted by Tony Hutton

Brian's recent posts regarding old scorecards from the past confirm that it is that time of year again. Old scorecards can trigger off memories from the distant past and bring back long forgotten stories. The comment about Bob Appleyard having a puncture on the way to Scarborough for the Yorkshire v Scotland match in 1951 is just one example. 

This reminded me of a story from Stephen Chalke's excellent book on Appleyard, 'No Coward Soul'. He explained that Appleyard normally travelled by car along with Frank Lowson, who on this occasion was playing for England. Suffering a puncture without assistance he struggled to change the wheel and arrived two hours late. Subsequently he was suspended for one match, which turned out to be the vital championship decided with Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Yorkshire were already without Hutton, Lowson, Watson and Brennan, all playing for England in the final Test with South Africa.

As a confirmed Yorkshire supporter, living in exile in the Midlands, I was distraught to see Warwickshire win by an innings and finish the season as champions. At the time the press did not report the reason for Appleyard's absence, during the season in which he took 200 wickets, and it remained a mystery to me until the publication of Stephen Chalke's book over fifty years later.

Frank Lowson and Bob Appleyard together at Headingley.

(From Stephen Chalke's book 'No Coward Soul').

Yet another bit of welcome nostalgia arrived on my computer this week. This time it was the full scorecard of a benefit game for Martyn Moxon at which I was present back in 1993. Thanks to Nick Briggs who I have recently got to know through a weekly Zoom meeting for local cricket enthusiasts and who actually played in this game for Bilton-in-Ainsty, a village team on the road between Wetherby and York. He jogged my memory last week during our chat and produced the very well kept and detailed scorecards.

Bilton-in-Ainsty 1993

I only stayed for the first innings of the game and my normally comprehensive records were incomplete, just showing that Yorkshire made 185-9 in their thirty overs, with the beneficiary appropriately 106 not out. I presumably left under the impression that the local club side, even with the assistance of one or two guests, would not bat for too long. How wrong I was!

Martyn Moxon takes a breather between overs.

Despite losing their two openers with the total on only two, the Bilton -in-Ainsty Invitation XI knocked off the runs to win by five wickets, with two overs to spare. This was largely due to the efforts of just two batsmen, West Indian Test player Clayton Lambert who made 90 before retiring and S. Ratcliffe who made 65. No one else made double figures. Lambert was then playing league cricket in the North Yorkshire and South Durham League and may well have left early in order to play for another team in the Harrogate Evening League.

The tented village at Bilton-in-Ainsty.

However an exciting finish which again I was completely unaware of over a period of twenty seven years. Just to complete the story my informant, Nick Briggs, had bowled eight very tidy overs and taken the wickets of Craig White and Jeremy Batty for just 42 runs before Martyn Moxon cut loose at the end of the innings and plundered a further 33 runs from his final two overs. Good to know that Nick is still turning his arm over for Yorkshire over 60s and appeared in the final match of the season for Arthington at Harewood recently.

BILL'S FIRST CAPTAIN MATCH

 By Brian Sanderson

I recently purchased the above scorecard in respect

of a match at Scarborough on 25 July 1951 against 

Scotland.At the same date England were playing South

Africa at Headingley.The opening pair for England was

Hutton and Yorkshire opener Lowson who was a late 

replaced for Ikin who was injured. Other Yorkshire players

were Watson and Brennan.In England only innings of the 

match Hutton scored his 102nd hundred of his career whilst

Lowson scored 58 on his Test debut.Looking at the newspaper

archives it reported that the first child in the queue was Adrian

Grayson who is the father of Paul , the present Yorkshire 

batting coach. Adrian is also well now  known  in Yorkshire

cricket.

Back to Scarborough Billy Sutcliffe, the son of Herbert was 

the captain of Yorkshire for the first time. Scotland batted first 

but Bob Appleyard had a puncture so arrived late.A Peter Race

acted as substitute fielder  for a while.It must have been a great 

occasion for him.The crowd was about 3000 to see Trueman take 

five wickets and Appleyard three in a Scottish total of 121.

Yorkshire opening pair was Vic Wilson ,above ,and Harry 

Halliday.They put on a stand of 228 of which Halliday scored 90.

Vic Wilson went on to score 223  runs which included two 6's

and twenty-five 4's.With the help of Sucliffe Yorkshire declared on

372 for one wicket.Also in the side was Doug Padgett playing 

his second first class match.

In the Scottish second innings John Whitehead, above took four 

wickets for fifty two run. The top Scottish batsman was Rev James

Aitchison who Presbyterian Minister and scored 74 in a total of 

272.

On the third day Padgett was able to bat  but was out for 8 runs in 

a  winning  total of 23 for 3.

Meanwhile back at Headingley South Africa scored 538 with Rowan

scoring 236 and England scored 505.There was rain on Tuesday 

which robbed Rowan opportunity of av remarkable feat of a 

double and single century in the same match.

Womens First Test Match 1951

 By Brian Sanderson

Recently I purchased the above scorecard in respect of 

the First Test Match between England Women and Australia 

in Scarborough from the 16 June till 19 June in 1951.

This was the first rubber between the two countries.The

first one was in 1934-35 in Australia.

The crowd was about 4000 to see England come out to bat.

Mar Cecilia Robinson from Kent scored 105 in four and three

quarters hours .in 1949 she became the first person born in

Canterbury to play Test cricket for England . Her opening 

partner was Myrtle Maclagan who scored 56 in a opening

stand of 95. The first innings score was 283.

When Australia batted Maclagan with shrewd variation of

pace too five wickets for forty three in twenty eight overs.

The Australian top scorer was Betty Wilson who was the first 

cricketer to hit a ton and take ten wickets.In this innings 

she scored 81 in a total of 248.

In the second innings England scored 178 for 8 setting a 

target of 214 in two hous which the Australians did not 

attempt finishing on 111 for 2.

In the Second Test match at Worcester Australia won 

by two wickets with Wilson taking seven wickets in the 

match with her off spin.

The Third Test match at The Oval England won by 137

runs.Mary Duggan was the match winner taking four 

wickets in the first innings with her arm fast medium 

bowling which brought her five wickets in one spell for 

five wickets.She also batted in useful style.

Even more about Charlie

 posted by John Winn

Back in July and just before cricket began its short season I wrote a piece about Charles Absolom whose death in 1889 as the result of an accident  was recorded in the following year's Wisden. This mercurial character was the first man to be dismissed for obstructing the field, and  after a career in English cricket which included one test match, first class cricket for Cambridge University, and his native Kent, he 'disappeared' to the USA. The accident that killed Charles after ten years travelling in North and Central America occurred on the dockside at Port of Spain when a crane loading sugar cane or bananas, accounts vary, collapsed and crushed him to death. Readers with good memories may by now be tut tutting exasperated that they have read all this before. If so I apologise, perhaps I should have prefaced this article with a 'new readers start here' warning.

Recent reading has however has by chance thrown a little more light on Charles, this time in the official history of Essex, co-written by David Lemmon and Mike Marshall. I say new light although the several references to Absolom's career serve largely to reinforce what I wrote about him before, namely that he was an outstanding all round sportsman and an exciting cricketer. Some sources make no reference to his appearances for Essex, they were not first class, but he played for the county club in the 1870s. The official history describes Charles as  'a cricketer (who) always played for his side and never for himself, a philosophy he carried into other walks of life.'

Playing in a match v MCC  at Lord's in 1872 the Essex county team included 'that very clever head-bowler (sic) and hard hitter Mr C Absolom,. Essex had a decisive win by nine wickets Charles scoring 26 batting at 7 then 5 when sent in first in the second innings. Using his clever head he took three wickets in the match. Another interesting match is recorded in 1874 between Gentlemen of The South and Players of The South at The Oval. The Players were bowled out for 77, our man Charlie 5 for 31 off 30 overs. The Gentlemen replied 280, WG 150 and second time around CA took another five, this time for 82 as the Players were dismissed for 163. Absolom bowled 39 overs in this innings and WG 38.3, so they must have bowled in tandem for long spells. Dr Grace's three wickets included his 500th first class wicket. A week later Charles played in the real thing, Gents v Players, again at The Oval but with no great success. It is interesting that whilst playing in matches for the Essex club Charles was also  playing for Kent, a career he began in 1864 until he played his last first class match at Trent Bridge in 1879. It would be nice to say he went out on a high note, alas 0 and 1 with the bat and did not bowl says otherwise. Ten years later his life ended under 'a misplaced load of sugar' (or bananas) at Port of Spain. 

CA Absolom (probably) 

Cricket (and a century) in October

 Posted by Tony Hutton

Despite this very truncated cricket season you can always rely on Arthington cricket club's annual festival to provide cricket up to the middle of October. So it was after two games abandoned by rain last weekend they were back in action yesterday in the grounds of Harewood House, near Leeds for a game against St George's Church. With the threat of showers around the start time of 12.30 and ominous areas of black cloud circling the ground throughout proceedings we were able to watch a full 35 overs per side game in pleasant autumnal sunshine for much of the afternoon.

October cricket in the sunshine at Harewood, while black clouds circle.

Possibly the best part of the day was the attendance of many friends from far afield, some who had not been seen for some time. The cricketing cognoscenti were drawn from as far away as Lancaster, Doncaster, Huddersfield and Brighouse, as well as the locals from Leeds. Sadly the home side, St. George's, had their side somewhat decimated at the last moment by the absence of three of their better players (all Adel first teamers) which meant a rather one sided contest, particularly as Arthington's festival eleven was re-enforced with some pretty useful guest players.

Autumn colours in evidence at Harewood.

Arthington batted first and accumulated runs steadily at first before accelerating to produce an almost impossible total for the home side to chase. James Lord, from Crossbank Methodists, initially dominated the opening partnership but was soon out for 21. Kamrosh Khan made a rapid 23, but when he was out the other opener Richard Spry, from Adel, took over with a fine innings of 64 which included eight fours and one six. 

Runs a plenty at Harewood.

Spry was partnered at number four by South African James Van der Merve, who has being playing in league cricket in Yorkshire for a few seasons now, this season with Scarcroft in the Wetherby League. He soon took over proceedings completely, even though wickets began to fall at the other end. He had reached 50 before Spry was out and then raced to a century with a series of mainly straight sixes, most of them off the bowling of late replacement, veteran Rupert Jones. Having gone from 99 to 105 with his tenth six, he immediately retired. A splendid display of hitting.

Left-hander, James Van der Merve, goes for another straight six.

During all this mayhem Greg O'Sullivan plugged away to pick up four wickets, two of them caught and bowled, to finish with by far the best bowling figures of 4-34. With overs restricted to thirty five per side Arthington's final total of 244-6 looked totally out of sight.

A lone spectator takes social distancing to the extreme.

So it proved as St. George's got off to the slowest of starts imaginable against the very accurate spin combination of Andy Stoddart and Nick Briggs. The amiable Mr Stoddart, bowling in his cap, probably surprised himself with incredible figures of 7-4-7-0. However top bowling figures of the day went to possibly another unlikely source when Vince Greaves-Newell stepped up to take three top order wickets and came up with 7-2-9-3.

Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals and the game ended with St. George's struggling to make 94-8 at the end of their 35 overs. A one sided contest throughout but one that brought a lot of pleasure to the small band of watching enthusiasts. Unfortunately on a fine, sunny afternoon today the final fixture of the season between Arthington and the Forty Club appears to have been called off due to heavy overnight rain.

 

Cardus revisited

 Posted by Tony Hutton

I have probably written about Neville Cardus in these columns before and no doubt may do so again in the future, but last night under the many restrictions we are all currently faced with, I had my first experience of an online 'Zoom' meeting when the great man was the subject of discussion. This was the first meeting of the Northern Cricket Society for their 2020-2021 season and available to both their own members, and those of the Wombwell cricket lovers society, who had the necessary technical know-how to log in.

Neville Cardus, extreme right, attended the Northern Cricket Society Dinner in 1952 with numerous other celebrities.

The speaker, from his home in Nottingham, was Chris O'Brien who has written one of the most recent books on the subject of this somewhat mysterious character entitled 'Cardus Uncovered'. Obviously a very diligent researcher he was able to talk fluently about the numerous flaws in the Cardus story, which started for me as a young man when I bought a paperback copy of his Autobiography. In recent times many people have suggested that some of his tales regarding his early life are not entirely true and Mr O'Brien's researches obviously proved the point.

While acknowledging that Cardus overcame his difficult early life and lack of education to become not only the cricket correspondent but also the classical music critic of the then Manchester Guardian, he seemed to have gone to great lengths to list every mistake, or even in some cases deliberate falsifications, in his writings. While it is true that many of his stories were embellished perhaps even to the extent of suggesting how he would have liked things to have happened rather than what actually did, this was indeed part of his charm, even to the extent of putting words into the mouths of certain Lancashire and Yorkshire players.

However, Mr O'Brien's book will no doubt be an excellent read with so much detailed research and questions asked about Cardus's period of residence in Australia during the Second World War, which did not go well with his Lancastrian readership. An interesting question and answer session followed with members of the watching audience from their own homes being 'unmuted'. I was pleased to hear Michael Pulford, the Society's booklet editor, echo my own views to the effect that he always enjoyed Cardus's writing. 

Indeed I have always felt that the book 'The Roses Matches 1919-1939', of his match reports for the Guardian, makes fascinating reading, particular for those of a Lancastrian or Yorkshire persuasion. More recently I would heartily recommend Duncan Hamilton's book 'The Great Romantic' and 'A Field of Tents and Waving Colours' with an introduction by Gideon Haigh.

Full marks to all concerned in putting the wheels in motion for this novel meeting which will continue certainly next month and for as long as the current restrictions remain in force.