A Singular ending to a Cricket Match

 By Mike Latham

A pre-Lockdown trip to Huddersfield, back last February saw me take in sights of the town’s glorious sporting past. The George Hotel, where the Northern Union (later re-named, in 1922, the Rugby Football League) was formed and Fartown, spiritual home of Huddersfield cricket and rugby.

Our Yorkshire based friends who kindly read these pages will be all too familiar with the magnificent memorial that still stands at the near-derelict former home of cricket in the town, dedicated to three great local players, Wilfred Rhodes, George Hirst and Schofield Haigh.

Schofield Haigh passed away of heart trouble at the age of 49 in 1921.

I thought about Haigh the other day, by chance when looking back at the career of the Kent wicketkeeper Jack Hubble and found reference to a famous match (or should it be infamous) I never knew happened.

Yorkshire v Kent at Harrogate, 7 July 1904. A glorious summer’s day, a crowd of 4,000 on the first day (Thursday), Kent winning the toss and batting on what looked a perfect pitch.

They reckoned without the brilliance of Haigh, entering the attack with the visitors 62 for 1, Alec Hearne and James Seymour batting well, bowling unchanged for the rest of the innings. He bowled immaculately, starting well by pitching the ball on a length straight away. Knowledgeable Yorkshire members knew what that meant- when Haigh started well, he invariably did well.

Haigh took six wickets- five clean bowled- as Kent succumbed to 177 all out. By the close of the first day Yorkshire, not without difficulty, were 35 ahead, 212-7. Haigh, in glorious batting form after centuries against Warwickshire and Derbyshire in his previous two matches, 38 not out.

Cricket was different in those days. ‘In five-and-a-half hours only 389 runs were obtained,’ read one report.

Hubble, unbeaten on 33 and playing only his second game as deputy for Fred Huish, sidelined by illness, was impressive with the bat and gloves, the forerunner to a great county career.

Jack Hubble

In the closing stages of the first day Colin Blythe made the ball turn square on occasions and it was noticeable that the pitch was cracking up alarmingly at the pavilion end. Walking to the game on the second morning, many of the Yorkshire players had mentioned this fact to the local correspondent. They had high hopes of a two-day win.

Haigh batted on as Yorkshire established a first innings lead of 102, which looked invaluable under the circumstances. Not without moments of luck- he was dropped twice- he finished unbeaten on 74 as Yorkshire’s first innings closed on 279. Blythe bowled a long spell, rewarded with 5-125, off-spinner Bill Fairservice taking 4-74 at the other end.

Colin Blythe

But closer inspection of the pitch revealed that the end previously cracked and breaking up was now smooth and damp. An urgent confab was in order.

At the close of the Yorkshire innings, Lord Hawke, the Yorkshire captain, met in the middle with the Kent amateurs (reflecting the social deference of the day) and the two umpires. Two old Etonians, his Lordship and Kent’s Cloudesley Marsham did most of the talking.  They agreed to let the umpires decide.

The umpires were Dick Pougher, an old Leicestershire stalwart who had played one Test for England and William Shrewsbury, a Notts man and brother of the late, great Arthur Shrewsbury.

They decided that the pitch had been ‘doctored’ and declared the match null and void, not to count in the county championship.

To appease the spectators, as another good-sized crowd had gathered, it was agreed to play on until 5pm and then bring a conclusion to events, abandoning the scheduled third day.

None of the performances in the match were to count in the national averages.

Old Ebor in the Yorkshire Evening Post described the scene: ‘It was a bitter disappointment, and one could not help wondering what would have been said by the crowd at Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, and other large towns had a similar incident occurred that robbed them of the serious cricket they had paid to see. Fortunately, it was a fashionable crowd at Harrogate, and some of the onlookers simply raised their eyebrows, exclaimed “Dear me!" and went to the gardens, or the Kursaal or the Stray for compensation.’

Kent went into bat and amassed 321 in a somewhat relaxed manner. Hearne made 64, Robert Livesay 69, Marsham an unbeaten 76 and last man Arthur Fielder smashed 37 in ten minutes at the crease.

Yorkshire called up veteran Lees Whitehead as a replacement for George Hirst and he bowled more overs than anyone else.

Old Ebor called it farcical that a substitute had been called upon.

Ironically on the same day Lancashire were allowed a substitute in their three-day match against an England XI at Blackpool,  Albert Ward allowed to replace the injured Les Poidevin. Ward hit 112 in the Lancashire second innings, but the England XI still won by eight wickets. Despite the talent on show this match was not afforded first-class status.

Meanwhile back at Harrogate Haigh, called into the attack late on, disdained to remove his sweater, bowled slow leg-breaks and, to his amusement, garnered a hat-trick in his first over, the wickets of Hubble, Fairservice and Blythe, caught, stumped and bowled respectively.

The press had a field day.

The Yorkshire Evening Post carried the headline: GAME NOT TO COUNT IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP. PLAY TO FINISH TO-NIGHT.

Old Ebor carried out his own investigation and spoke to the groundsman, Joseph Redfearn, a former Yorkshire player, who made one first-class appearance in 1880.

Lord Hawke

Mr CHB Marsham

He flatly denied doing anything improper, stating he could not say whether anyone had tampered with the wicket. He pointed out there was a watchman on all night. But, as Old Ebor added, Lord Hawke, Mr Marsham and the two umpires would not have been parties to such a serious decision without very grave cause.

‘As the result of a conversation which I have had with one of the umpires, and others who were on the ground early this morning, there can no doubt that water was used for the purpose of what may be called re-binding the wicket,’ Old Ebor wrote. ‘But who was the responsible for this proceeding one cannot, in the face of Redfern’s earnest disclaimer, pretend to say. The contretemps is the sole topic conversation on the ground.’

The events made news nationwide.

The Edinburgh Evening News headline was: CRICKET FIASCO AT HARROGATE.

‘As briefly reported yesterday, the match between the Yorkshire and Kent elevens at Harrogate ended yesterday, under circumstances fortunately without parallel county cricket. It was abandoned on the grounds that the wicket had been tampered with, contrary to Law 9 In Cricket.'

Later on the Friday the Harrogate club issued a statement, unanimously agreed by all 17 members of the committee passing a unanimous vote of confidence in Redfearn, at the club seven years and held in high esteem, and stating the improvement in the pitch, after their exhaustive enquiry, was due solely to climatic influences, there having been a very heavy dew which caused the clay, of which the wicket is largely composed, to roll flat, and give the players an even better wicket than on the previous day.

Old Ebor concluded: ‘The resolution is, I need hardly point out, in direct contradiction of the belief of the captains, umpires, and players that someone or other had tampered with the wicket. All that I care say about the matter is that Lord Hawke and Mr CHB Marsham on the one side and Messrs AD Pougher and W Shrewsbury on the other, would not be parties to such a serious and unique step in the cancellation of a county championship match without being perfectly satisfied in their own minds that there was grave reason why this extreme course should be taken.’

The biggest loser was Schofield Haigh (pictured above), who hit 74 not out and took six wickets at a period of the game when it was played under first-class conditions, having his performance expunged from the record books.

Surely there is a case for stating that the two first innings should count in the first-class records?

When another infamous pitch incident occurred, after four days of play in the third Test between England and Australia at Headingley in 1975 the play that had occurred quite properly counted in Test and first-class records. But the latter is a story for another day.