Dimming of the Day

On 6 August again it was reported that Captain Watson (also the captain of Lewes Priory) ‘has had to forgo sport for more serious work of a military character’. The paper also carried the ‘Your King and Country Need You’ advert. Still on that day we have a report of the Southdown Hunt Farmers match. The Master stated that he had placed all his horses at the Kennels at the disposal of the War Office should they need them (applause). There was still some optimism. Over at St Andrew’s, Nuthurst, an ever- hopeful Rev’d J Arthur Rawlins advised parishioners, We hope to hold the usual social [in connection with the Dedication Festival] on Thursday Oct 10 th , if the war is over by then, otherwise it will not take place this year. Norfolk seems to have been rather different. The senior clubs played their never-ending round of friendly cricket whilst the village sides’ interest was concentrated on the mini-leagues which could be found dotted throughout Norfolk. These competitions, rarely consisting of more than five or six teams, tended to finish as early as mid-July so that they would not be compromised by the harvest; for example, both divisions of the Mid Norfolk Village Shield were settled by 13 July whilst the Honingham & District League was completed just ten days later. Towards the end of the month the rather more urban cup competitions were completed when the final of the Norfolk Junior Cup saw Norwich Stanley crush Yarmouth Southtown by 116 runs and the conclusion of the Junior Cup resulted in Melton Constable thrashing Carrow Seconds by 141 runs. The press reveals that plenty of midweek matches were played in the last days of July and, further, that a full programme of matches took place on Saturday 1 August. This was reported in the usual manner in the Eastern Daily Press : the matches of the senior clubs were dealt with on the following Monday whilst the cards of less important fixtures were printed between Tuesday and Thursday. As was normal, an ‘honours board’ was also printed which listed those players who had scored at least half a century or taken hauls of five wickets or more; cricketers of all levels of ability were eligible for inclusion and a humble village journeyman could find his name alongside that of a county star. The Bank Holiday Monday (3 August) also showed a ‘normal’ pattern for cricket in Norfolk: a number of fixtures of varying importance that one might expect for such a day – Norfolk County Asylum v Lowestoft Town, Overstrand v Carrow, Hunstanton v Stowe & District (who only fielded ten men), Horstead v Old Catton, Somerleyton v Lowestoft Great Eastern Railway, Lexham Park v North Elmham, Dunston v Helpnall, Hasingham v Cantley. It also saw the start of the Festival in which Norfolk hosted Hertfordshire at Lakenham. Fielding a strong eleven, Norfolk took the first-innings points in a game which finished with the visitors needing 39 runs to win with two wickets still to fall. Although the fact that the Festival had commenced and the fact that results from matches that had been played the previous Saturday were still being reported in the Eastern Daily Press rather obscures the picture, it is clear Recreational Cricket 111