Cricket county

“ At the present day there are county clubs which rely mainly for their existence on the voluntary subscriptions and donations of their supporters, men whose only reward is the opportunity of seeing good cricket brought home to their own doors, and the promotion, expansion, and improvement of the game. Gate-money is of course an important factor in a club’s receipts, but it is sheer nonsense, it is almost mendacity, to declare that the county cricket of to-day is played for gate-money and for nothing else. ”

“ A game is a game, and if it is a good game, we who love it consider that it deserves something more than casual and ephemeral treatment; hence we throw ourselves into it heart and soul, and those who like to see heart-and-soul work have only to go to the nearest county ground on a match day to see how energy and rivalry can, on the principle enunciated above, turn a game into a no-game.
Nor is it illogical at this point to assume that county cricket is to us the highest popular embodiment of our pastime ”

“ The history of county cricket is worthy of a book to itself, and cannot have justice done to it here. Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Hampshire and Nottinghamshire have been in existence for more than one hundred years; and all of them, at one time or another, were strong enough to play an Eleven of England. But county cricket pure and simple may be said to have reached its highest development in the last twenty years. Yorkshire was established in the early part of the present century, Lancashire in 1864, and Gloucestershire and Derbyshire in 1870. ”

“ Some men consider that only the qualification of birth should be considered, so that only natives of a county should represent it; but, after all, this qualification is a mere accident as far as the individual himself is concerned; it would act hardly on a man born in a poor county—poor, that is, as a cricket-playing county; it would condemn many a first-class player to take little or no part in first-class cricket, which is the same thing as county cricket, and we might even have the anomaly of a county desiring, owing to its plethora of great players, to put two teams into the competition. ”

“ County cricket is nowadays a little over done. Two three-day matches a week throughout the summer don't leave much time for other pursuits. A liberal education at a good public school and university seems to be thrown away if it is to be followed by five or six days a week at cricket all through the summer year after year. Most of our best amateurs realise this, and, knowing that if they go in for county cricket at all they must play regularly, they give it up, and are content to take a back seat. They do wisely, for let us always remember that cricket is a game and not a business. ”

“ The influence of individuals and families, such as the Graces in Gloucestershire, the Walkers in Middlesex, and in recent times the Fosters in Worcestershire, has of course been of inestimable benefit to cricket in those counties; but Buckinghamshire and Norfolk and Cheshire send their sons to the public schools and universities no less than Lancashire or Kent. It is difficult, therefore, to understand why county cricket should so persistently confine itself to a small number of counties ”

“ The distribution of cricketing ability in England might be the subject of some interesting speculation. In the first forty years of the annual competition for the championship six counties alone gained the coveted distinction, and three of these, Surrey, Notts and Yorkshire, won it thirty-four times between them. Why, it may be asked, is it that one county excels in the game while another has no place whatever in the history of cricket? ”

“ Being first of the secondclass counties in 1892 and 1893—bracketed with Derbyshire in the latter year—it was duly promoted to higher rank, and opened the 1894 season in sensational fashion by defeating, in rapid succession, Notts, Surrey, and Kent, no other county being successful that year in beating Surrey at the Oval. The county has always held its own well, even though, with the exception of the internationals, Lilley and W. G. Quaife, it has produced no very prominent men: it has won its way by steady and consistent cricket, rather than by brilliancy. ”

“ Nobody who has watched the game carefully can fail to be struck with the wonderful development of county cricket. The ideal county cricket really exists, speaking of first-class counties alone, in the three counties of Nottingham, Yorkshire, and, we think, Derbyshire. Regarded impartially, a county ought to be represented solely by county players, but as a matter of fact this is not the case anywhere but in Nottingham and Yorkshire. But in many counties are to be found gentlemen who like to have first-class cricket in their county, and a county cricket club is founded. ”

“ Such pluck by a few zealous friends, whereby the club was rescued from insolvency, met with its reward by the excellent results which Derbyshire achieved as a cricket county in 1894, and the ofificial recognition that year of the county being promoted to first-class rank invested the matches with keen interest. Of the exponents for the Peak county mention must be made of the excellent all-round cricketer George Davidson. He is exceptionally good both with bat and ball. ”

“ County clubs dare not take a decided line about cricket reform, lest a shortening of the game might diminish the gate-money, and professionals do not speak out because they are forced to bow the knee to Baal. County clubs are therefore in this position: they must attract gates; to do this they must have a fine eleven; to get a fine eleven they must have amateurs, and these amateurs cannot play regularly without being paid, and so paid they are. The expenses of running a first-class county eleven are therefore very [208] great—so great, in fact, that few can stand the strain. ”

“ English county cricket is now the most firmly established cricketing institution in the world, but in its earlier stages it owed much in different counties to enthusiastic individuals and famous cricketing families whose energies were devoted to its The Graces and Gloucestershire. ”

“ The fact is incontrovertible, whatever the cause may be, but to most of those who have watched the course of cricket events, the progress of county cricket will present itself as the primary cause of the progress of the game as a whole. At the same time, there is a fair field left for those who choose to maintain that the impetus given to county cricket is really due to the rapid spread of the game itself and the attendant enthusiasm of its admirers ”

“ It would be hard to say who is the finest player that the county has produced, but it is easy to name the most popular and the most famous, namely, A. N. Hornby, the present president, who played his first county match in 1867, and has only recently retired from county cricket. He was for many years the captain of the team and has probably stolen more runs (and run more partners out) than any other cricketer. ”

“ Some of these counties are not reckoned first or second class; they have no League system of registration of points; and second class counties such as Herts are in somewhat an unsatisfactory position, for they are too often nothing but feeding-ground for the rapacity of the rich first-class counties to gorge their appetites on. The real danger of county cricket is that genuine amateurs will become fewer and fewer, for they will not bother themselves to give up so much time as first-class counties require. ”

“ We may now note a few of the more important landmarks in the history of county cricket. The question of qualification, as already stated, was raised as early as in 1868, for it was felt to be an abuse, as well as unfair to certain counties, that men should be allowed to represent two counties in one year; it was, however, an unwritten law that a man did not play against the county of his birth, even if he did not play for it. ”

“ There is one other point of view in which the modern system of gate-money, champion county, &c., has been productive of much evil, viz., that everything goes to the county which has the longest purse, so as to cause a jumbling up of counties that is positively bewildering. A rich county like Surrey or Lancashire scour the country and buy cricketers whom their poorer neighbours cannot afford to keep; and a professional, having to earn his living, is only too glad to be bought by a first-class county to play first-class cricket, and, if lucky, to get a good benefit. ”

“ As representative of the Warwickshire County Club at Lord's, Mr Ansell made efforts to improve the status of second-class counties, and tried hard to obtain a proper system of promotion into the first-class rank. In November 1885 he called a meeting of the younger counties at the Pavilion at Lord's, and the following resolution was then passed: "That in the opinion of this meeting the older counties should encourage the growth of cricket of younger counties by playing home and home matches with at least one of them every year." ”

“ Cricket is the finest game ever invented, but it is after all only a game, and it is wrong that things should have developed in such a way that amateurs become professionals in all but the name, and that gate-money should be the real moving spirit and ideal of all county clubs. To be prosperous financially a county must win matches, to win matches you must get the best possible county eleven, therefore the best amateurs as well as professionals must be played ”

“ They did much good work in popularizing the game, and an annual match between the two at Lord’s on Whit-Monday was once a great feature of the season; but the increase of county cricket led eventually to their disbandment.
At this period, and much later, the first-class matches of “M.C.C. and ground” (i.e. ground-staff, or professionals attached to the club) occupied a far greater amount of importance than is at present the case. In recent years over 150 minor matches of the utmost value in propagating the best interests of cricket are annually played by the leading club. ”

“ Cricket is now a very serious affair; the struggle for supremacy among counties has reached a pitch of gravity that seems remarkable, considering that many counties are made up of players gathered in from all parts of England. Why an Oval crowd should be so desperately keen to see Surrey win a county match when Nottingham, Yorkshire, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Middlesex, have at different times been drawn upon to make up the Surrey eleven seems incomprehensible, but it is a fact. Human nature, as Squeers said, is "a rum un'," and I can't explain it. ”

“ And in his “benefit match” in May 1907 at Lord’s he achieved the “hat trick” twice in one innings, taking first four and then three wickets with successive balls. But if there has been a dearth of professionals in Middlesex cricket, the county has produced an abundance of celebrated amateurs. In addition to the Walkers and A. J. Webbe, the metropolitan county was the home of the celebrated hitter, C. I. Thornton, and of the Studd family, who learnt their cricket at Eton and Cambridge University. ”

“ Neither must we forget the All England and United Elevens, who, under the generalship of Clarke or Wisden, play numbers varying from fourteen to twenty-two in almost every county in England. So proud are provincial clubs of this honour that, besides a subscription of some 70l, and part or all of the money at the field-gate being willingly accorded for their services, much hospitality is exercised wherever they go. This tends to a healthy circulation of the life's blood of cricket, vaccinating and inoculating every wondering rustic with the principles of the national game. ”

“ From 1870 to 1890 Nottinghamshire stands out preeminently amongst the first-class counties, having been at the head of the list seven times, while it will be seen Sussex has been at the bottom eight times.
I shall not trouble my readers by saying much about the future of the counties. Surrey and Nottinghamshire's prospects are as bright to-day as at any time in their history; but, then, the brightest prospects have often been shattered in cricket, and many a county that was expected to do well has done ill. It is never safe to prophesy when the unexpected happens so often. ”

“ It is not, of course, every county that can manage its cricket en prince in the way indicated: that implies a heavy rent-roll, a handsome and dependable income, and perhaps a snug little sum in the 23⁄4 per cents; only rich counties can do things with a lavish hand, and find themselves able to spare a lucrative match that will produce a bouncing benefit for some deserving professional. Others have to look rather wistfully at the small roll of cloth from which their coat has to be cut, and have to curtail expenses accordingly ”

“ A sum was guaranteed by the club played, and each player had his share, and could rely on a steady engagement as long as he kept up his form. It was not likely a player would throw up an engagement of that kind to play a county match, even though he were offered the same remuneration, unless he obtained permission from the manager of his eleven. Unfortunately, as I have already said, the managers of the two elevens were not too complaisant, and so county cricket suffered. ”