More Champain

posted by John Winn

In a posting I made last month, 'Another Horace', I made reference to the Bateman Champain family and in particular Francis of that ilk who played for Gloucestershire, Oxford University and The Gentleman in the closing years of the nineteenth century. That era in David Green's history of Gloucestershire cricket is dominated by chapters on the county's 'giants, WG Grace and Gilbert Jessop and Francis Champain is the only one of the several brothers who gets a mention in the book and even he is limited to two references. In the first of these he is listed as one of a number of talented amateur batsmen who played in 1895. This assessment must have been  based on things to come for Francis batted but three time for Glos that year scoring 0,0 and 4. His bowling was slightly better yielding two wickets at reasonable cost. The following season his school master's duties allowed FHB, to give him his full initials, the time to play four matches one of which yielded a fifty, batting at nine against Middlesex. Despite his limited availability Francis  continued to improve and in 1899 came his greatest moment when playing for Oxford University at the Christchurch Ground, Oxford he opened the batting and hit a century against the visiting Australians. This gained him selection for the Gentlemen in their match against the Players at The Oval where he hit 30 and 8. He did not play in the return match at Lord's the following week but he could hardly complain given that the Gentlemen's first three read MacLaren, Fry and Ranji.

Three of Francis' brothers also played first class cricket and although none achieved the same heights none could be have said to led dull lives. Hugh, the oldest born in 1869 rose to be a Brigadier General in the Indian army and played for MCC and Gloucestershire appearing in 12 first class matches spread over 14 seasons. His debut was against Yorkshire in 1888 and his last game against Surrey in 1902 was ruined by rain and he did not ball or bowl. Another of the family, Claude, 1875-1956, also played in that match and like brother Hugh his career of 18 first class matches was somewhat spread out beginning in 1897 and ending in 1907, Claude too began against Yorkshire but with play confined to the first day he had no chance to shine and indeed shine he never did for his top score in 28 innings was 29 against Somerset at Gloucester in 1902.

This leads to the last of the four Champains, alas none called Charlie, for this is John born 1880 died 1950 and who only played five matches for Gloucestershire, the rest of his first class experience being confined to games for Free Foresters for whom he made his top score, 17, v Cambridge University in 1919. With Hugh's best effort 35 it is hard not to come to the conclusion that except in the case of Francis, family and status rather than cricket ability were largely responsible for the careers of the Champains. John however reached distinction in another field for later in life he became the Bishop of Knaresborough.

Finally, thank you to our readers for the blog recently recorded its 200,000th hit

Francis Henry Bateman Champain

Yorkshire at Stourbridge in the 1930s

Posted by Tony Hutton

Recent researches into Yorkshire's 1949 season reminded me that Leonard Hutton made a pair against Worcestershire during the month of June, when he made a record number of runs in a calender month. For some reason I had the feeling that this match was played at Stourbridge, but on looking it up found it was at the county ground Worcester. There it was in black and white - L.Hutton bowled Perks 0 and lbw bowled Perks 0.

The Stourbridge connection was still niggling me so I looked up the games Yorkshire had played at this long forgotten first class venue, which I visited for the first time to see a Worcestershire second XI game in 2016. Yorkshire have played four games here, the first one way back in 1906 when Lord Hawke, Rhodes, Hirst and Haigh were all in the side which won rather easily.

Then to my surprise I found that the other games when Yorkshire played here were all close together in the 1930s. I just wonder whether Yorkshire had upset somebody at Worcester as they were sent to Stourbridge, almost the equivalent of being sent to Coventry,  rather than the county ground in 1936, 1937 and 1939.

Stourbridge pavilion.

Looking up the scorecards of these three games proved most interesting. Yorkshire didn't lose many games during that period. They were county champions in 1937 and 1939 but only fourth in 1936 when Derbyshire won it for the only time. To my great surprise I discovered that Worcester won the game in 1936 by just eleven runs in a season when Yorkshire only lost two games. A very young Leonard Hutton was run out for 0 in the first innings and was lbw to Jackson for 0 in the second.
So this was another pair which I must have heard about hence the Stourbridge connection.

A very young Reg Perks also played in this game and distinguished himself by dismissing the great Herbert Sutcliffe for only seven. Worcester scored 148 in the first innings (Verity 5-48) and Yorkshire replied with only 123 - Mitchell top scoring with 34. In the second innings Worcester were dismissed for 92 with Verity doing even better with 8-40. Yorkshire's victory target was only 118 but having got to 68-2 thanks to Sutcliffe and Leyland, they collapsed to 106 all out, spinners Dick Howarth and Peter Jackson taking five wickets each.

Worcester second XI in action at Stourbridge.

One year later (a couple of weeks after I was born) Yorkshire were there again and normality was resumed with a victory by an innings and 81 runs. This time Hutton made a century (101) and Leyland 167 in a total of 460 all out.

Worcester replied with 190, top score to the splendidly named H.H.I.H. Gibbons. He made 74 not out and his full name is Harold Harry Ian Hayward Gibbons. Surprisingly he was not an amateur but a professional born in Devonport (possibly a nautical connection) and played from 1927-1946. Verity was at it again with 5-53. The second innings proved very similar, Worcester 189 all out (Verity 5-60).

The War Memorial archway at the entrance of the Stourbridge ground.

Another surprise in 1939, just before World War II, when another low scoring match took place and Worcester yet again claimed a rare victory this time by just sixteen runs. Worcester were all out for 102, Ellis Robinson and Hedley Verity with four wickets each, but Yorkshire in reply made only 91.
Hutton was bowled Perks for seven, as he would be again ten years later for nought! Turner did better than his illustrious team mates with 29 not out and Reg Perks took 4-20.

Worcester were again dismissed cheaply, this time for 118 - Reg Perks top scoring with 36.
Having seen him bat after the war I would assume that he gave it the long handle in no uncertain fashion. Bill Bowes chipped in with three wickets, as did Robinson, and Verity had four. So once more a modest total of 130 required by the visitors. Again the middle order collapsed, with skipper Sellars collecting a pair, and despite Leyland's valiant 39 Yorkshire were dismissed for 113. Perks took 5-50 and Martin 4-30.

So a fascinating period of cricketing history played out at an almost forgotten venue, not the most salubrious of settings for the Birmingham League club who still share the playing area with the local soccer club. However the Stourbridge club has been a prolific nursery for Worcestershire cricket over the years and I well remember seeing them field a side of nearly all county players in a Birmingham League match at Walsall in the 1950s. Among those who played were Peter and Dick Richardson (brothers who both played for England), Martin Horton, Dick Howorth, Norman Whiting, Grenville Wilson (a very quick left arm bowler) and George Mills (wicket keeper).

Probably the most famous Stourbridge player of all was Don Kenyon, who was a prolific opening batsman and captain of Worcestershire, who also played a few games for England. In more recent times all rounder Stuart Lampitt was another Stourbridge product.

More from Wetherby

posted by John Winn

In the most  recent posting on their website  the Wetherby League has given  more details of how the league will be structured in 2018. This follows the decision made by the member clubs,covered in a posting on this blog a couple of weeks ago, not to merge with the York and District League. The season will begin on 28th April and finish on September 8th with the two Bank Holiday weekends kept completely free of cricket. Each of the top three divisions will have ten clubs with the remaining fourteen in Division Four.

The league also confirms the departure of three clubs, Shadwell and Old Leos, who have joined the Aire Wharfe, and champions Kirk Deighton who have been accepted into the Nidderdale league, a transfer which has provoked considerable rancour. Kirk D had given notice early in the 2017 season of their wish to negotiate with other leagues and subsequently applied to join the the Nidderdale league in 2019, an application which was accepted. On the 24th of October Kirk received an email from the chairman of the Wetherby League which said that the club would not be offered fixtures for 2018 and has accused the Nidderdale League of  a breach of the Memorandum of Understanding between leagues over the issue of transfers. They have now been accepted into the Nidderdale for 2018 and with  back to back Wetherby titles on their cv the newcomers will look to do well in the new surroundings and it will be interesting to see where they will be placed when the fixtures are announced.

With three clubs going through the exit door it is of interest that one, Burton Salmon, are bucking the trend and will join the Wetherby league in 2018.  The club ran into difficulties in 2016 and withdrew from the York Vale League early that season citing lack of players as the problem.  The club reformed this year and after a season of playing friendlies now feels ready for a return to league cricket.

Four years ago to the week I posted an item entitled 'A Cliffe hanger' in which I referred  to a visit made by Tony to the delightful North Yorkshire ground of Cliffe CC, near Scotch Corner and just off the Roman Road, Dere Street. Tony's account appeared in the book Two Men and A Blog written by Tony and Peter Davies. Cricket has been played at Cliffe for well over a hundred years and for a while there was even a Cliffe and District League. Yesterday I was given privileged access to back copies of the Darlington Sports Despatch in the hope that I might be able to find positive confirmation that the Swaledale League finished in 1966. Alas coverage was even more sparse than in the Darlington and Stockton Times on which I had based my earlier research and there remains a question mark as to when the last game was played. July 23rd 1966, probably but alas not definitely.

Whilst searching through the bound copies of 'The Pink' as it was known I found several references to The Cliffe League including this the final table for the 1923 season.

Forcett Park, Croft, Melsonby and Gainford are no more but the other four prosper. Raby Castle were 2017 champions of the Darlington and District league, Richmondshire runners up in NYSD Premier, Cliffe gained promotion to Darlington and District Division A  and Barton were comfortably mid table in that division.

Old man stars for Old England (1951)

Posted by Tony Hutton

Searching through my cricket archives recently I came across the details of a match played at the beginning of the 1951 season at Edgbaston, Birmingham. This was a warm up game for Warwickshire in what was to be an eventful season as they went on to win the county championship.

The game was against a star studded Old England XI with many players whose best years were in the 1930s before World War II. The most notable performance of the day was a magnificent century by one of the oldest men on the field Donald Knight aged 56. 'Tiger' Smith the former Warwickshire wicket keeper, and by now the county coach, was probably the oldest at 65.
       

This was a one innings match which was quite a novelty in those days and although the overs were unlimited it was a predecessor of things to come in the future. Warwickshire fielded a few youngsters in contrast to their opponents and left out all their regular bowlers with the exception of Eric Hollies, who for the first time in his life was listed as high as number nine in the batting order on the scorecard. He was not called upon to bat but had been a number eleven for all of his career.

Warwickshire batted first and a young man recruited from Yorkshire, Norman Horner, was out for 2 bowled by Surrey veteran Alf Gover. His opening partner Jimmy Ord, who had played for the county before the war, stayed around long enough to prove the mainstay of the innings with a fine 117. Don Taylor, another newcomer from New Zealand made a useful 38 but county captain Tom Dollery would not have been too pleased to be dismissed by two of his former county colleagues. He was caught Smith bowled Paine for just 1.

Nevertheless Warwickshire declared with a useful 214-6 in 60.4 overs. Paine once of Warwickshire but now of Moseley in the Birmingham League was the best bowler with 16-4-56-2. Jim Sims another spinner still plying his trade with Middlesex was a bit more expensive but also took two wickets.

Warwickshire were trying out two young and eager fast bowlers Ray Carter and Jack Bannister. Carter started off brilliantly dismissing both openers for nought. Laurie Fishlock of Surrey was clean bowled and Jack O'Connor of Essex lbw. When Bannister removed Paine for 9 the score was 28-3 and everyone thought the game was going to be a walkover for the county side. A good partnership from former England captain R.E.S. Wyatt, now with Worcester, and the aforementioned Mr Knight of Surrey swung things back Old England's way with a stand of 67. Wyatt was the dominant partner but was out for 47.

At this point Knight took over and played the innings of the day racing to 112 with 18 fours and playing some splendid shots all round the wicket.

Donald Knight was born in Sutton, Surrey in May 1894 and played for the county while still at school at Malvern College. He won a blue at Oxford either side of the First World War and his best season was as far back as 1919 when he opened regularly with Jack Hobbs and scored over 1500 runs at average of 49 with nine centuries. In 1920 he was struck on the head by a ball and was never the same batsman again.

However in 1921 he was picked for two Tests against the Australians but made only 54 runs in four innings. He became master in charge of cricket at Westminster School in 1920 and thereafter only appeared occasionally for Surrey, retiring after the 1937 season.

Having discovered this after the match made his innings all the more surprising and to this day I remember it and the fluency of his batting. He was eventually clean bowled for 112 by the persistent Bannister, who of course was to make his name as a county professional, bookmaker, journalist and commentator in future years. In fact Bannister had a very good day finishing with 5-43 in what became a drawn match with Old England 206-8 when time was up.

Wetherby League carries on

poste to the point where d by John Winn

On a number of occasions over the past few seasons I have blogged about the loss of clubs from the Wetherby League to the point where the league's very future has been called into doubt. The league has confronted this situation by polling all clubs with the choice of remaining as the Wetherby League or merging with the behemoth that is the York and District Senior League. The result of the vote, to which three clubs did not respond, was 59% in favour of the league continuing. The clubs also voted on the structure for next season and by a majority of 5% voted to reduce the number of clubs in Division 1 to ten. 13% voted for an option that would have seen the number of teams reduced to eight. Secretary Barry Oliver stresses that the decision to reduce to ten is a trial and will be reviewed for 2019.

Will this stop the exodus of clubs? Possibly not for if we turn to the Nidderdale League website there is a lengthy article under the heading 'Plan for Change' which refers to the 'potential implosion of the Wetherby League' and the reduction in divisions to three. Anticipating that the merger with the York league might have gone ahead three Wetherby  clubs within the Nidderdale catchment area had sounded out the possibility of joining the Nidderdale rather than the York.

Much of 'Plan for Change' addresses the problem only too familiar to pcws, the plague of concessions, especially in the lower divisions of leagues. There is an excellent paragraph which sets out how the changes in both men and women's  lifestyles,  have impacted on league cricket. I recommend it to all our readers. The stats for conceded matches are truly awful, 72 in total, more than one fifth of which were by one team, Helperby III. 25% of the 'lost games' were when the cricket and football seasons overlapped and the worst day when in 11 matches no coin was tossed was when York Races, the Headingley test and the Leeds Festival coincided. Wetherby gave up 17 matches that day.

To his credit the Nidderdale secretary is not content to ring his hands and in his article puts forward several suggestions to try and reduce this problem. These include reducing the number of overs, reducing the number of matches in the lower divisions and speeding up over rates. For the full article search Theakston Nidderdale League, click on news, then a plan for change, scroll down to TNL Review plan for change discussion document, for those of you watching in black and white it's in green ink. Clubs were invited to attend a discussion meeting on this matter last week. No report on that yet.

Finally the website reports that the company that gave birth to crichq, a system the league has used for a number of seasons, has gone into administration and the league is trialling ecb's play cricket as an alternative. Whilst I feel sorry for anybody whose jobs are threatened by this news I will not be sorry to see the back of crichq, a website I have grumbled about on the blog on numerous occasions.

No play today. Hinderwell CC 26/08/17

Derbyshire in Staffordshire

Posted by Tony Hutton

A trip into Staffordshire to see Minor Counties cricket at Checkley this summer completed my set of grounds on which Derbyshire have played in that county. It all goes back a very long way as I was reminded the other day when I passed through Burton on Trent on my way home from a few days holiday in the Midlands.

The Staffordshire Knot

As a boy and a young man I lived in Walsall at the southern tip of Staffordshire and can recall an epic cycle journey (a round trip of about 50 miles) from Walsall to Burton on Trent to see Derbyshire play Worcestershire in May 1953 at the Ind Coope & Allsopp ground. I can vaguely remember Don Kenyon making top score for Worcester in a game which Derby won by three wickets, but what sticks in the memory is that the two Derbyshire amateurs came out of a different gate, and presumably dressing room, from the professionals.

Derbyshire in all played 35 first class games at this ground between 1935 and 1980 by which time it had become the Allied Breweries ground. At that time it was decided to concentrate all cricket at Derby and Chesterfield. Sadly although the ground continues as a sports and social club no cricket is played there now.

A few years after my cycle journey I returned to Burton to play on the Town Ground, which also staged county cricket on a regular basis between 1914 and 1937. Along the track off Trent Bridge (another one) we passed the third venue to stage first class cricket in the town when both Oxford and Cambridge played Derbyshire on the Bass Worthington ground during the mid 1970s. Our club side from Walsall which played a Sunday friendly at the Town Ground was notable for the inclusion of one David Brown, fresh out of school and already being looked at by Warwickshire. He was of course to go on to captain the county and play for England. On this day however he failed to take a wicket whereas my gentle off spin managed two or three!

Time moves on and with the advent of the John Player Sunday League Derbyshire had the idea of playing some matches at different grounds in Staffordshire to obtain new supporters from a county which over the years had provided them with some very useful players. So it was that games were played in the seventies and eighties at Cheadle, Leek, Knypersley and Checkley. The first three had staged Minor Counties games for Staffordshire but Checkley only caught up during the 2017 season when I visited for the first time.

Checkley cricket club.

All these grounds have their attractions but obviously it was difficult getting sponsors despite some deals with local councils. The facilities were not really up to staging county games and the experiment was eventually abandoned following further improvements to the county ground at Derby.

Some of the information in this blog has been sourced from an admirable ACS publication 'Cricket Grounds of Derbyshire' by John Shawcroft, written in 2008. Unfortunately there is one mistake which shows a picture of Hartlepool's ground labelled as Knypersley. However I am able to rectify that with a picture of my own, which without doubt was taken at Knypersley during a visit by Cumberland.

Knypersley cricket club

Another Horace

posted by John Winn

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

for the Gentlemen against the Players on two occasions. His playing days over he took up fruit farming in Canada.