Chapter VI: County Cricket (1)

By W. J. FORD

It has been always cast in the teeth of us Englishmen by our Continental critics that we take our amusements seriously—that our idea of recreation is to go forth and kill something, and that anything of the nature of excitement is unknown to us; even our wars seem to them to be conducted by us in a cold-blooded, business-like, almost saturnine fashion, such as the foreigner cannot understand. Our almost fanatical excitement over the relief of Mafeking and of Ladysmith might have served to disenlighten our neighbours to a certain degree, but they probably regarded those wild bursts of enthusiasm as a mere phase of a fever, as one of the periodic alternations of heat and cold that are characteristic of a severe attack of ague. It is for the historian and the student of human nature to decide whether our nature is phlegmatic or merely proud, and whether these rare outbursts are not in reality a genuine eruption of violent volcanic feelings which have long smouldered beneath the crust of our real nature. The true account seems to be that in matters of a public and, still more, of an international character, insular pride does not allow us to reveal the fact that the Englishman possesses a certain amount of that excitability which we choose to attribute to the southern and the Latin races: it is only a special stress that reveals this side of our nature. When, however, the Englishman’s foot is on English soil, and when his only critics are of the same blood as himself, then and only then does he allow the true keenness of his disposition to run riot. The Englishman, in short, only casts aside his phlegm, his reserve, and his pride when he is in congenial society, and the presence of the necessary society is in no place more apparent than on the scenes of those sports that afford him the amusement and, in some cases, the means of life. Those scenes may be narrowed down to the football field, the race-course, and the cricket ground. It is with the last of these that our business at present lies.

It would be impossible to lay down any cast-iron reason for the fact that general interest in cricket has increased by leaps and bounds in the last twenty years. 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; while there is, as usual, a third course left to us, which is to maintain that the two things, general cricket and county cricket, have advanced _pari passu_, each owing much to the other. And at this point we may abandon the question as one that will produce abundant controversy and no conviction, especially as all the theorists can meet and agree as to the one common effect, differ as they may as to the cause, namely, that both players of the game and lovers of the game have increased by innumerable multiples during the last fifteen or twenty years. There are those who think it good to decry this desperate enthusiasm for a pastime—who declare that it is a symptom of national decadence, and declare that a mere game is an irrational thing, inasmuch as a rational treatment of it at once destroys its existence as a game in the true sense of the word. We are hardly prepared, however, to have our pastimes handled in this Socratic manner. 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; it is true that a certain and a limited number of special matches attract more attention, for sentimental reasons, than do mere county matches, but it is on the latter class of games that genuine and general interest is mainly expended, earning for those who exhibit it a certain amount of contempt from those who hold that to lavish interest on a game is to squander a valuable asset. Political economy and its votaries would doubtless tell us—indeed, they do tell us—that such labour as is expended on hitting, or on bowling, or on stopping, or on catching a mere ball, is unproductive labour, and consequently labour lost, while they show no limit to their contempt for those who, not being actual players themselves, squander—so they call it—valuable time in watching other people waste time that is equally valuable. However, the cynic and his butt, like the poor, are always with us; all that we can desire and all that we can hope for is that he will confine himself to his dwelling, and leave us to enjoy ourselves in peace, while we may fairly ask him to reflect in the recesses of his barrel as to what the watchers of cricket would do with themselves if there were no cricket to watch. That they would be better employed is possible; that they would be worse employed is probable; and he would be a poor philosopher indeed who would find fault with the open-air stage of Lord’s or the Oval, and would yet allow the music-hall and the theatre to stifle their nightly victims. The strictest of Puritans could hardly find fault with bat and ball as being the inculcators of evil principles; rather, like the study of the ingenuous arts, do they “soften our characters and forbid them to be savage.” The cynic and the rhymer have had their say, but cricket is still with us, and seems likely to stay, howl as they will.

In connection with the game’s advance, it would be unjust not to acknowledge the fillip that has been given to it by the periodical visits of Australian elevens, the first of which occurred as far back as 1878, combined with the return of their calls by our men. It was a new truth to us that there was growing up in Greater Britain a race of men who, taught by ourselves, profiting by our lessons, and in the process of time perhaps improving on our methods, were able to withstand us to our face, the pupil often proving the superior of the master; and it may be that to this fact, and the perhaps unconscious conviction that “the old man” must not be “beaten by the boy” at cricket as at chess, is due the uprise of county cricket as the readiest means of ascertaining our strength and organising our resources, though it was not till several years after the first visit of Australians that any real attempt to organise county cricket into a formal competition succeeded. Such an attempt had been made in 1872 by the Marylebone Cricket Club, which offered a cup in that year for competition among the counties, but the offer was coldly received, the counties that entered were so few that such words as “competition” and “championship” became misnomers, and the offer was withdrawn. Not that the word “champion” had not been and still was applied to some county or another as soon as the last ball of the season had been bowled, but the expression was visionary; it was merely the outcome of the views of the press or of individuals, and it naturally happened that when these views conflicted there were “two Richmonds in the field,” both styled champion by their respective supporters. It was not till the representatives of counties met in peaceful conclave, coded laws and bye-laws, with the request that the M.C.C. would exercise a fatherly and presidential rule over county cricket, that the latter became historical fact.

It seems to me that the growth and systematization of general cricket are due to the growth and systematization of county cricket, and the emulation which accompanied its increase. The counties, having set their hands to the plough, were in no mood to look back; those which, as exceptionally strong, were rated first-rate, set themselves to see that no weakness on their part should cause them to be degraded to the ranks; while the rank and file, on the other hand, spared no effort to secure their own promotion. And at this point it is well to remind those who profess to see a mere desire of money-making underlying the expansion of county cricket, that the then junior counties, many of which are now seniors, owed their existence and its prolongation not to gate-money or speculating syndicates, as is the case with many football clubs, but to the generous assistance of enthusiastic patrons, whose only motive for liberality was their own love of the game, as a game, and their desire to see it not merely extended, but perfected. 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. Yet such assertions have been made, and are still made, by men who do not reflect that the patrons who subscribe to a club do not do so with the idea of providing the public with a gratis entertainment, though—I am thinking of one patron in particular—such an act would not be without precedent: their idea is, as stated before, to provide amusement for themselves, encourage the game, and help those who help themselves. The last people to grumble at the payment of gate-money are the payers themselves, who are not slow to recognise that sixpence is not a large sum to expend for a day in the open air, with a display of skill and activity thrown in, for which the spectator pays at the rate of about one penny per hour! Lastly, and briefly—for there is no satisfaction gained by dealing with misstatements—when accounts are balanced, the surplus that remains, if any, does not go to swell the speculator’s income, but is devoted to the improvement of accommodation, the advancement of the game, or that prudent economy that provides against the cricketer’s bugbear, in every sense of the word—a rainy day.

I have suggested that we owe the increase of cricket to the growth of county cricket, and the reasons are not far to seek. When once a county is included in the first class, or aspires to it, its first effort is to enlist all its available talent, and as the reward of the great cricketer is no mean one, whether that reward come in the shape of reputation and amusement to the amateur, or of good red gold to the professional, the aim and ambition of every promising player and of the club to which he belongs is to get at least a fair trial in the higher spheres of the game. Further than that, the executive does not merely wait to receive the applications of the ambitious, but, like Porsena of Clusium, it “bids its messengers ride forth, east and west and south and north,” not exactly “to summon its array,” but to ascertain what fighting blood there is in the county ready for immediate action, and what recruits there are whose early promise may be developed into disciplined effectiveness. In other words, the cricketing pulse of the county at once begins to throb, and the executive, like a wise physician, keeps its finger on that organ, to ascertain the condition of the patient. But it is not merely by inquisition into the talent that is available that the ranks of a county eleven are filled up: the promising players are invited to attend at the county ground for inspection, practice, and tuition, being drafted into the company of the “ground” bowlers, and given opportunities in minor matches of exhibiting their natural and their trained powers, a further impulse being given to cricket by the distribution of the big matches among different centres, where such distribution is possible, and by the mission of so-called second elevens to the most distant bounds, to play matches and to discover talent. These trips may well be compared to the marches of different regiments through those districts from which, under the territorial system, they hope to draw their recruits. When to these different forms of encouragement we add the sums spent in occasional subsidies, to say nothing of the salaries of players and officials, and of the expenses entailed by the upkeep of the club’s ground and property, it will be seen that, though the sour may sneer, it would be and is impossible for a crack county to maintain its position unless its assured income from subscriptions were augmented by the humble sixpence of gate-money. 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 2-3/4 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; but the county cricket club, even if run upon humble lines, recollects that Rome was not completed within the twenty-four hours, and that as nothing succeeds like success, its first and primary duty is to be successful, if possible; that it is only by pains and patience that the best men are to be discovered and utilised, and that its turn can only be served by inoculating as many people and clubs as possible with the most virulent type of cricket fever.

I am disposed to think that that county is likely to prosper which can find two or three grounds within its borders which are suitable for county cricket, and are in the centre of fairly populous districts; to which fact I attribute, in no small degree, the success of the Yorkshire County C.C. as an institution, and of its eleven as a fighting body. Not that the side has always had the pleasant experiences of 1900, 1901, and 1902, when in a series of eighty-three matches only two resulted in failure, for as recently as 1889 the big county and Sussex met at the fag-end of the season in an encounter which was to decide whether the northern or the southern county was to find its name at the bottom of the roll; but the county of so many acres has not only a large field of selection, but has also, in Sheffield, Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford, Scarborough, York, Hull, and Dewsbury, so many centres of action that she can display her powers to tens of thousands, where other counties can only muster thousands, and can thus command a very large and consistent income. But in strict and strong relief stands out the figure of Nottingham, a county that, to the best of my knowledge, has never played a “home” match away from the Trent Bridge ground, and has never been blest with a superabundance of this world’s goods, yet has for many years not only possessed a formidable eleven of its own, but has also been able to send out a full and steady stream of professional players of all classes, some of whom, though not exactly thankless children, have proved a veritable set of serpent’s teeth when arrayed against the mother county. Nottinghamshire is a standing exception to the rule that great elevens are the outcome of great incomes.

There is no doubt that the true nucleus of a county eleven lies in the body of professional players that the executive has at its disposal. As men who are in receipt of a definite wage for their services, and as men who, by reason of their skill, obedience, and civility, have something like a right to expect a benefit match after some ten or twelve years of service, they find it a duty as well as a pleasure to keep themselves in good condition as well as in good practice, and, their services being always available, they are in the long run of more general use than the amateurs, many of whom, having other avocations, are unable to play regularly. Not that any eleven is complete without its amateurs. Among professionals a certain amount of professional jealousy is sure to arise, which sometimes grows into something stronger; while it has been proved by actual experience that in an eleven entirely composed of paid players, and of course captained by a professional, difficulties of discipline will occur, the management of the eleven being acridly criticised by those who think that in some form or other their abilities have not been duly recognised, which lack of recognition is attributable to the worst and meanest of motives. There is no such thing, fortunately, as a cricket trade-union, nor is there any place for it, but as a matter of history it is right to record that various secessions, almost amounting to mutinies, have occurred in the professional ranks at different times, which have sometimes taken the form of a strike, based either on a claim for higher pay, or on a demand that certain players who are regarded as obnoxious—almost as blacklegs—by their comrades should not take part in a given match, under no less a penalty than the refusal of the protestants to appear themselves. All these things have occurred, but just as the intestine disputes of bees may, according to Virgil, be allayed by the flinging down of a handful of dust, so a little diplomatic negotiation has settled the dispute. But nothing tends so much to bind a team together in the bonds of amity as well as of discipline as the presence of capable amateurs—men of tact and education as well as efficient cricketers, one of whom, acting as captain and supreme controller, can readily check the earlier symptoms of discontent, or, better still, by his wise administration of his office prevent the incubation of a disease so disastrous as indiscipline. The moral effect of the presence of amateurs is no whit less than their value as players, preventing as it does the somewhat sordid troubles that are apt to arise among those to whom cricket is a livelihood, and not merely a pastime. Further, a great deal has been said and written—mainly by those who know nothing of the subject—as to the exact relations existing between the amateur and the professional. Only ignorance permits a man to apply such a word as “snobbish” to the custom of providing separate accommodation for the two classes of players; worse is it when such a one hints at such a thing as stand-offishness on the part of the amateurs. There are certain differences in the education and the social position of the two classes that makes the closer intimacy of the pavilion undesirable, and undesired also by both parties. At any rate, cricketers are perfectly capable of making all such arrangements for themselves, without the intrusion and interference of others. They have their own code and their own method, nor does there exist any analogy between the regulations, especially as to the amateur _status_, of cricket and of other games. Cricket stands on its own pedestal, and it is good that it should.

One of the troublous parts of cricket legislation has been the question of the residential qualification of cricketers for their counties, and the manner of defining what _bona fide_ residence is. It has been always recognised, I believe, that a man may play for the county in which he was born, or for the county in which he resides, though for “or” might have been written “and” as recently as 1873. Up to that date a man might, and many men did, play for two counties in one and the same season, under the two qualifications, while it was an understood thing that when those two counties met he represented the county of his birth. There were, however, obvious objections to this dual license, though they only first took shape in the form of proposed regulation in 1868. Five years later it was made law that a man who was doubly qualified must elect at the beginning of each season to play for one of these counties, and for no other. It was undoubtedly an abuse that such a state of things should exist, but it must have been a convenient source of revenue to a few professionals in the days when fees were low and matches few. But the accurate definition of _bona fide_ residence is still a difficulty: in some cases a man has taken a room, or a room has been taken for him, in the county for which he is desired to qualify, and he has, as occasion suited, occupied it for a night or two, while similar evasions or elastic interpretations of the law have existed; but the present solution of the question is probably the best one, _i.e._ to fall back on the patient and ever-willing committee of the M.C.C., which consents to adjudicate on all such questions as they arise. It should be added that proposals have been made several times, notably by Lord Harris in 1880, that the residential period should be reduced to one year; but though this reduction would have acted well in certain cases, especially in those of Colonial and army players who took up their residence in England, it has been held that objections outweigh the advantages, and the tale of years has not been reduced.

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. As long as one county does not attempt to lure away men from its neighbours, as long as every club keeps its eyes wide open in its quest for its own young blood, and as long as every man feels that it is a primary duty to keep his allegiance to his native county, so long will the present rule be thoroughly satisfactory, and the “sporting spirit” must be trusted to see that the unwritten laws are not transgressed. At the same time, a hard case may readily be stated, the case of the man of true and tried merit, who has only the prospect of a small income and a small benefit as the reward his birth-county can give him, while by naturalising himself with its neighbour he may look for a large pecuniary reward. As a general rule, however, the present system works well: useful men are sometimes overlooked, and allowed, so to speak, to take foreign service as soldiers of fortune, but as the process is largely reciprocal, it reacts, to some extent, on all counties alike. To Yorkshire, and I believe to Yorkshire alone, belongs the credit of having been represented for many years by Yorkshiremen alone; but then Yorkshire is a very big land.

As soon as cricket became a part and parcel of English sporting life, the contesting sides naturally ranged themselves, in some cases at least, under the political subdivisions of England, viz. the counties, and consequently we find county cricket existing in a form as far back as 1730, when “a great match was played on Richmond Green, between Surrey and Middlesex, which was won by the former” (I quote from T. Waghorn’s _Cricket Scores_). It is interesting, by the way, to note that two of the keenest rivals of to-day met in friendly combat some 130 years before Middlesex could boast of a county club, while the Surrey Club did not really come into existence till 1845. It may be added that Middlesex had its revenge three years later, _i.e._ in 1733, and that the then Prince of Wales, a great patron of cricket, was so pleased with the skill and zeal of the players, that he presented them with a guinea apiece. Organisation, classification, championships, and all the paraphernalia of modern county cricket did not exist, of course, in the times when locomotion was difficult and matches consequently few, except among near neighbours; but it may not, on the whole, have been bad for cricket that at the outset many matches were made for money, and that all contests of importance were vehicles for universal and heavy betting. It may seem heterodox to approve of wagers and stakes, when nowadays it is the pride of those interested in cricket that it rises above such things, but it must not be forgotten that customs change with the times; that betting was universal in the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth among all men who wished to be considered “smart”; and also that, but for the support and encouragement given to the game by “sportsmen” and “Corinthians,” it would never have flourished in the fashion in which it flourishes to-day: indeed, there was nothing more absurd in Kent playing Hampshire for 500 guineas, than that the representatives of the two counties should fight a main of cocks for the same sum. We naturally find certain abuses which are due to the betting system, but on the whole, it kept the game alive, and soon quickened it into a more vigorous existence. Money had to be found somehow; gate-money was out of the question in the days when most matches, even the very greatest, were played on village greens or open commons; hence the natural sequence that in the men who found the stakes and laid the wagers cricket found its best and keenest patrons. To the love of betting we may probably attribute the formation of various matches in which curious combinations of numbers were made, or when certain men were played as “given” men, so that the strength of the contending parties might be equalised. Who, however, would care to go nowadays to see twenty-two of Surrey play twenty-two of Middlesex, a game that took place in 1802, and again in 1803? In 1797 we find that England played against _thirty-three_ of Norfolk, and won in a single innings by 14 runs. Again, in 1800, twelve of England play nineteen of Kent, and we find about this period such matches as “Middlesex, with two of Berkshire and one of Kent _v._ Essex, with two ‘given’ men”; but a special interest attaches to this match, as being the first ever played on Lord’s ground, the old “Lord’s” of Dorset Square, in 1787. Perhaps it is not unfair to conjecture that the original match was to be between the two counties, but that the sides had to be patched up owing to defections. It seems hardly probable that monetary or other reasons would prompt such curious combinations of men and counties. Proper qualification can hardly have been insisted upon; indeed, we find that the famous Hambledon Club, practically Hampshire county, was largely composed of Surrey men who received enthusiastic invitations to visit the famous Broad Halfpenny Down. Harking back to some stray scraps of historical interest, we read that in 1739 Kent, “the unconquerable county,” played England in the presence of 1000 spectators, but the match ended in a fiasco, owing to disputes; indeed, such terminations were not very uncommon when party feeling ran high and betting was rampant. In 1746 Kent again plays England, and wins by a short neck, _i.e._ by one wicket, while Sussex and Surrey seem great rivals; Surrey, indeed, beats England three years later, and in 1750 loses to Kent by 3 runs, but wins the return by nine wickets. From the names quoted, it is evident that cricket flourished in the south rather than in the north; but cricket was not unknown in the big manufacturing shires, for we find that Manchester and Liverpool were then, as now, desperate rivals, as were Sheffield and Nottingham. Sheffield, indeed, was so strong that it could play, and used to play, the rest of Yorkshire single-handed. In a note to a match played between Hants and England in 1772, we find that “Lumpy,” for England, bowled out Small, “which thing had not happened for some years”! Perhaps “Lumpy” had secured one of those wickets on which he could bowl—

For honest Lumpy did allow
He ne’er could bowl but o’er a brow.

Hence if the wicket had a “brow,” and Lumpy pitched one of his “shooters” on it, Small’s downfall is not remarkable. However, though Hambledon was the best club and Hants the best county, England was too strong to be tackled single-handed. Surrey first met Kent in 1772, and beat the county of cherries and hops, having previously done the same for Hants, though in the latter case the nuisance of “given men” crops up on both sides; yet such games were clearly popular, strength being thereby equalised, for we find numerous matches between Hambledon and England in which the former club was supported by the presence of outsiders. However, the Hambledon Club, “the cradle of cricket,” with its “ale that would flare like turpentine”—what a use to put good “October” to!—“a viand (for it was more than liquor)” that was “vended at 2d. per pint,” collapsed towards the end of the century, and it was many a long year before Hants became great again. Alas, too, for Hambledon cricketers! They were not content to play cricket for love or for glory, but for stakes, the stakes being pints, doubtless of the famous “viand”!

A few stray notes on the early half of the century may be not inappropriate, and most interesting seem to be the trio of matches played between England and Sussex in 1826. No such contest had ever taken place before, and the series was really arranged to test the relative merits of underhand bowling and the then new-fangled roundhand. The results may be regarded as conclusive. Not only did Sussex win the first match by seven wickets and the second by three wickets, but the third match was lost by the county by as few as 24 runs. More conclusive was the action of nine of the professionals, who refused, after the second match was over, to play in the third game, “unless the Sussex bowlers bowl fair—that is, abstain from throwing.” The triumph of the new style was complete, though five of the recalcitrants played in the third match after all. It was in the Kent-Sussex match of this year, Kent having some given men, that wides were first counted, though they did not appear as a separate item. Three years later no-balls received a similar distinction, the match being, nominally, between Middlesex and the M.C.C.; but the county had no regular organisation till five-and-thirty years later. Indeed, it is illustrative of the then condition of some so-called “county elevens,” that “Yorkshire” plays the Sheffield Wednesday C.C. and is beaten in 1830, while in 1832 Sheffield plays twenty-two of Yorkshire! However, in 1834 an eleven, called Yorkshire, consisting mainly of Sheffielders, lost to Norfolk by no less than 272 runs, Fuller Pilch contributing 87 not out and 73; yet Pilch was a Suffolk man, who was eventually induced to settle in Kent, though in this year he played for England and against Kent, which at this time was easily the strongest county. Next year Yorkshire had its revenge on Norfolk, as, though Pilch made 153 not out in the second innings, the Norfolk men surrendered, the game being hopeless, probably to avoid the necessity of coming up on the third day.

It is unnecessary to dive more deeply into dates, figures, and facts, beyond the important fact that early in the last century there were many counties that played cricket between themselves, and in certain cases could challenge the rest of England, though they did not exist as regularly organised societies. The matches were arranged by the patrons of cricket, as an exciting form of contest in which money was to be won or lost by betting, and with a view to the increase of the excitement, men were given to one side or barred from another, or else extra numbers were allowed as a counterpoise to extra skill, till in due course counties began to exist as organisations of themselves, with a view to county cricket pure and simple. Their establishment, however, was a matter of time. Sussex led the way in 1839; Kent seems to have followed the lead in 1842, the year when the first Canterbury “Week” was held, under similar conditions to those that now exist; while the year 1845 saw the birth of the Surrey Club, with the Oval as its cradle. Then came a gap, but in the ‘sixties county clubs sprang rapidly into existence—Notts in 1859 or 1860, Yorkshire in 1862, Hants in 1863 (though the club collapsed early, and was resuscitated in 1874). Middlesex saw the light in 1864, and so did Lancashire. Leicestershire dates back to 1878, Derbyshire to 1870, while Gloucestershire is only a year younger, being followed by Somerset in 1875, by Essex in 1876, and by Warwickshire in 1882. With the appearance of Worcestershire on the scene in 1899, at least as a first-class county, we have reached the last-joined of the present big cricketing counties; but it should be clearly understood that the dates given are as a rule only those of the years in which the clubs were originally formed. Their pretensions to be included in the privileged list of those who are entitled, as being “first-class,” to take part in the championship competition were only gratified when they had by active service and doughty deeds established a claim to promotion.

The formation of county clubs, especially in the middle of last century, may fairly be traced directly to the success, in finance as well as in cricket, of those famous organisations, the All England and the United All England elevens. Originally founded as purely financial speculations, for the promotion and success of which the best cricketing talent of the country was enlisted, they made annual progresses through England, meeting the picked local talent of all cricketing centres, generally reinforced by imported men, and meeting each other at Lord’s on Whit-Monday, this last match being regarded as at least the equal of the Gentlemen and Players fixture as a display of scientific cricket. The periodical visits of these skilled _troupes_ not only excited the interest and improved the cricket of the local centres—Dr. Grace himself bears ample testimony to the keenness caused by their presence—but they also opened the eyes of cricket-lovers to the fact that good cricket could be made self-supporting. Further, they saw the immense progress that the game would make, and the enormous facilities that would be offered to that progress, in every county which had a club and a centre of its own. It may be said, indeed, that the success of these peripatetic teams, while it conduced to their own collapse, suggested and promoted the foundation of county cricket as it is played nowadays. The two great elevens did their work well and thoroughly, both for themselves and for the game, and when they dispersed, and their constituent members were drafted into the county elevens, they could at least claim that they had popularised the game, had improved the methods in which it was played, and had left behind them a valuable legacy to all those who either played or admired cricket. Think of this, all of you who are apt to remember only the pettinesses and schisms of those two great elevens! There were pettinesses, and there were schisms, but these must be forgotten in the recollection that the men who erred were likewise the men who put our first-class cricket on its present basis, who made the existence of county cricket feasible, possible, and profitable.

It should here be noted that though only fifteen counties have been enumerated, the cricket-playing counties are by no means restricted to that number. Norfolk and Suffolk have for many years been cricketing counties. Cambridgeshire was at one time, thanks to Hayward, Carpenter, and Tarrant, one of the strongest of counties. Northamptonshire, Durham, Northumberland, Lincolnshire, and many others, _quos nunc perscribere longum est_, have all fostered cricket and cricketers, and if they have not come into the forefront of the battle yet, there is no reason why they should not yet figure as champions, considering the vigour and keenness with which the game is played and watched. In fact, the question of classification is an extremely hard one, the uncertainty of cricket and the part that luck plays adding most materially to the difficulties. By the present system the general results pan out pretty well, and harmonise, as a rule, with public opinion, but accurate organisation and registration, with due regard to merit, is impossible in a game at which such curious results are possible as were seen in the Yorkshire-Somerset match of 1901. Yorkshire, undefeated, was at the head of the list then, as at the end of the year. Somerset, at the time the match was played, had won but one match out of eight; further, the game in question was played on Yorkshire territory, and Somerset, dismissed for 97, was headed on the first innings by 238 runs. In the end, Somerset won by 279! Who can classify, who promote, who degrade, when such extraordinary fluctuations are possible? It is clearly no solution of the promotion question to suggest that the lowest of the first-class counties should play the highest of the minor counties, the first-class certificate being the stake. Nor are matters facilitated when we remember that, for financial and other reasons, the minor counties contend in a competition in which only two days are allotted to a match instead of three. Doubtless public opinion, _i.e._ the opinion of the players who are before the public, offered the best solution of the difficulty of promotion by co-opting Worcestershire into their ranks, the formality being of the simplest nature; for Worcestershire, the fresh claimant for the highest honours, simply announced at the Counties’ meeting that they had arranged to play the minimum number of matches that qualify for the first class with the requisite number of counties. The first-class counties co-opted Worcestershire; arbitration and adjudication were unnecessary.

In the infancy of county cricket the meetings of the different clubs were arranged by a sort of process which we may appropriately describe as natural selection. What could be more natural than the rivalry between the great professional sides—I am writing of the ‘seventies—of Yorkshire and Nottingham, and of both with Lancashire, and of the amateur elevens of Middlesex and Gloucestershire? Geographical convenience brought certain counties into close contact, and pre-eminent strength tempted others to ignore all difficulties, geographical and sentimental, and to fight the good fight to the bitter end. All things, indeed, seemed to be working up for some form of county competition, when the M.C.C., in 1872, offered a challenge cup to be held by the leading county of the year. The conditions, put in an abbreviated form, were that a certain number of counties, not exceeding six, were to be selected by the M.C.C. as the competitors; that the matches were to be played at Lord’s, and apparently on the “knock-out” principle; in the event of a draw, the match was to be replayed; the cup to be retained by any county that could win it three years in succession. The competition, however, fell through, several of the counties withdrawing their entries, and the Marylebone Club consequently withdrawing its offer. Kent, however, played Sussex at Lord’s for perhaps the only time, and on “dangerously rough wickets,” Kent winning by 52 runs.

It is not possible to give a list of champion counties that is absolutely accurate, as, until the competition was regulated by proper laws, and a recognised system of scoring points existed, the champions were selected partly by popular opinion, partly by the written opinions of the press, the two often differing, especially when party feeling ran high. In the following list, however, the opinion expressed by Dr. W. G. Grace in his _Cricket_ has generally been regarded as paramount, and few will venture to dispute his authority.

CHAMPION COUNTIES, 1864-1901

1864. Surrey. 1883. Yorkshire.
1865. Notts. 1884. Notts.
1866. Middlesex. 1885. Notts.
1867. Yorkshire. 1886. Notts.
1868. Yorkshire. 1887. Surrey.
1869. Notts. 1888. Surrey.
1870. Yorkshire. { Notts }
1871. Notts. 1889. { Lancashire } equal.
1872. Surrey. { Surrey }
{ Gloucestershire } 1890. Surrey.
1873. { Notts } equal. 1891. Surrey.
1874. Gloucestershire. 1892. Surrey.
1875. Notts. 1893. Yorkshire.
1876. Gloucestershire. 1894. Surrey.
1877. Gloucestershire. 1895. Surrey.
1878. Notts. 1896. Yorkshire.
{ Lancashire } 1897. Lancashire.
1879. { Notts } equal. 1898. Yorkshire.
1880. Notts. 1899. Surrey.
1881. Lancashire. 1900. Yorkshire.
{ Lancashire } 1901. Yorkshire.
1882. { Notts } equal. 1902. Yorkshire.

Thus in the last thirty-eight years, if we reckon in the occasions when two or more counties have tied for the first place, we find that the championship has been held by Nottinghamshire thirteen times, by Surrey eleven times, by Yorkshire ten times, by Lancashire five times, by Gloucestershire four times, and by Middlesex once. Sussex did not lose a match in 1871, but only played its neighbours of Kent and Surrey, in a year when the three northern counties were particularly strong. The above list is of course given for what it is worth, but may be regarded as fairly accurate, though the conditions and the methods of calculation have differed so widely at various periods. Up to 1888, no special system for reckoning the “order” seems to have obtained, the results being practically arrived at “by inspection”; in that year and in 1889 the proportion of wins to the matches played was the accepted process, losses being ignored, and drawn games counting half a point, so that Notts, with nine wins and three draws in fourteen games, tied with Surrey and Lancashire, both of which had ten wins and one draw, ten points and a half, in the same number of matches. Next year, and till 1895, defeats were deducted from victories, and the points thus obtained decided the award, but in the latter year the present system was adopted: a win counts a point for, and a defeat counts a point against; losses are deducted from wins, and a ratio is calculated between the figure thus obtained and the number of finished matches, draws being ignored. Thus, if a county plays 20 matches, wins 11, loses 4, and draws 5, the figure is 11-4, _i.e._ 7; the proportional fraction is 7/15 (15 being the number of completed matches), and the figure of merit 46.66, the original vulgar fraction being, for the sake of convenience, multiplied by 100 and reduced to a decimal.

Referring back to the list once more, we note that Gloucestershire was not beaten in 1876 or 1877. Lancashire lost no match in 1881, and won six games with an innings to spare. Lancashire and Notts had identical figures in 1882; but critics were inclined to favour the superiority of Lancashire, as having beaten Notts on one of the occasions when the two counties met, while the other match was drawn. Notts in 1884 won nine games out of ten, and drew the tenth—a great record, eclipsed by Yorkshire, who lost no match in 1900, and only one in both 1901 and 1902. Yorkshire’s career since 1889 has been curious: in that year she played Sussex at the very end of the season, the “wooden spoon” depending on the result; however, Yorkshire won. In 1890 she was third. Then followed two bad years, but in 1893 the big county was at the top, and also in five of the next nine years, her lowest place being fourth in 1897. Surrey has a fine sequence of six headships, beginning with 1886, by far the largest series on the list.

A word may here be added on the connection between the Marylebone Club and the counties. The club has always religiously abstained from interfering in county matters unasked, though reserving to itself the sole right of deciding all questions connected with the game in general. But at times there seem to have been signs of a little petulance on the part of some of the counties, or their representatives, kindly patronage having been mistaken for interference. Nothing, however, could be more satisfactory than the present state of things, the M.C.C. being regarded, as it rightly should be regarded, as the supreme _junta_ of cricket, and consequently as the oracle to be consulted in case of difficulty, and the arbiter in the event of difference. The county delegates discuss all county matters, and refer the results of their deliberations to the M.C.C., with a request that the club will duly hall-mark them, and settle any disputes or questions that may arise out of them. A powerful neutral is indeed necessary as arbitrator, seeing that the County Cricket Council, which was born in 1887, proclaimed its own dissolution in 1890, having shown no great capacity for managing its own affairs.

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. Thus Howitt, who was practically identified with Middlesex, did not play against his native Notts. Southerton, however, who played regularly for Surrey by the residential qualification, always represented Sussex against Surrey, often to the discomfiture of his foster-county. However, it was not till 1872 that formal legislation took place, when the following arrangements were made:—

(1) No man to play for more than one county in the same year.

(2) Any player with a double qualification to state at the beginning
of each season for which of the counties he proposed to play.

(3) Three years’ _bona fide_ residence to qualify professionals; two
years sufficient for amateurs.

These regulations were passed at Lord’s, but next year a meeting, held at the Oval, asked that the Lord’s authorities would put professionals and amateurs on the same footing, and two years of residence are now required of both alike. It was also enacted that under the term “residence” was included the parental roof, provided that it was open to a man as an occasional home. Lord Harris proposed in 1880 that the two years should be reduced to one, but did not carry his motion, though it was and is felt that in certain cases, _e.g._ in that of an Englishman born in India, or of an officer home on furlough, the rule bears rather hardly. It was further passed in 1898 that a man who had played for a particular county for five years was permanently qualified for it, provided that the series had not been broken by his playing for another.

It seems hardly credible, considering what county cricket has grown to be, to hear that not till 1890 was any real classification of counties undertaken; however, it was at a meeting of the moribund Cricket Council, held at the Oval on 11th August, that eight counties were pronounced to be first-class, and to be the competitors for the championship in 1891. The sacred eight were:—

Notts. Kent. Yorkshire.
Lancashire. Middlesex. Sussex.
Surrey. Gloucestershire.

And these were to play home and home matches with each other. In 1892—prospective legislation this—the lowest of the first-class counties was to play the highest of the second-class for its place, and various details were worked out in connection with this scheme, but when the Council assembled at Lord’s on 8th December of the same year, so much difficulty and trouble occurred over the question of classification that it was felt to be a relief when a representative of Middlesex jumped up and proposed that “this Council do adjourn _sine die_.” The resolution was accepted with gratitude, and the County Cricket Council was no more.

Next year Somersetshire, having arranged a purely first-class programme, announced the fact at the annual meeting of county secretaries, and was duly recognised as a first-class county. In 1894 the matches played by Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Hampshire, Leicestershire, and Essex were recognised as first-class, though for convenience the counties were considered to be outside the competition for that year. In 1899 Worcestershire made a similar announcement to that of Somerset, and was admitted into the sacred circle, thus making the number of first-class counties up to fifteen. With these increases in the number of competitors, it was clearly impossible to maintain the original principle that each county should play home and home matches with every other, especially in those years when an Australian eleven was in England. Some of the larger and richer counties manage to get through so huge a programme, even with Australian matches thrown in, but in ordinary years the original number of eight is retained as the qualifying number, reducible by decree of the M.C.C. in those years when reduction is necessary. It was in consequence of the increase in the number of the playing counties that the proportional system of 1895 was introduced.

We may now glance at the history of the various first-class counties, taking them seriatim; and I must here express my indebtedness to K. S. Ranjitsinhji’s _Jubilee Book of Cricket_, which is a perfect mine of information on the subject.

_Derbyshire._—Though the county club only came to its birth in 1870, cricket had long flourished in the land, fostered largely, as one authority tells us, by the clergy. “The game in Derbyshire,” he tells us, “owes much at one time and another to the parsons—a fact that is perhaps worthy of more general recognition than is sometimes allowed.” The first appearance of the new county was remarkable, as on the Old Trafford ground, in its very first match, it defeated no less a side than Lancashire by an innings and 11 runs, the home county mustering no more than 25 notches in its first innings, when Gregory actually had six wickets for 9 runs. So strong was the county attack in its early days, Gregory being reinforced by Platts and Hickton, Flint, W. Mycroft, and Hay, that the eleven was jestingly described as consisting of ten bowlers and a wicket-keeper, the batting being by no means powerful. Mycroft was one of the most formidable bowlers in England, but with the decadence of himself and the rest of the band, the bowling weakened as the batting improved, though at last the latter, thanks partly to the transfer of good men to other counties, failed so sadly that in 1887 the county was reduced to the second class, only to be restored in 1895, and in that year to reach as high a place as fifth in the championship competition. Fine bowling was again the chief contributory to this success, G. G. Walker, George Davidson, Porter, and Hume, with Storer to keep wicket, being backed by such good batsmen as S. H. Evershed, L. G. Wright, and Chatterton. In Davidson and Storer, indeed, Derbyshire possessed a pair of wonderfully fine all-round men, Davidson’s premature death being a grievous loss. Last year (1902) the fortunes of Derbyshire were not particularly brilliant, but the county, always a by-word for bad luck, especially at one period when it seemed impossible for its captain to win the toss, made a good step forward. It is unfortunate for a hard-working and enthusiastic committee that the Derby public gives to cricket but one tithe of the support that it lavishes on football; however, there are plenty of liberal supporters of the club, which has also, in its times of need, proved its ability for raising the necessary funds by means of bazaars and the like. The ground, which is at Derby, has a total extent of eleven acres, with a good pavilion and an excellent pitch.