Double Headers

8 Yorkshire managed to arrange a ‘full set’ of Championship fixtures in every season up to and including 1901, and did so again in 1904. Lancashire also did so in most (though not all) seasons up to 1901, but in these early days Surrey were the most persistent ‘full-setters’, arranging to play all their opponents twice in every season from 1890 to 1908 apart from 1899 (when they missed out on fixtures against newly-first-class Worcestershire), and the years from 1905 to 1907 when they declined to play Somerset, with whom they were in dispute. 2 When that dispute was settled, in 1908 Surrey again arranged a full set of fixtures, becoming the first side ever to schedule as many as 30 Championship matches in a single season. Meanwhile, with ever more frequent tours by overseas teams, and with a gradual rise in the number of fixtures between the counties and the Universities, the first-class fixture list was steadily expanding, rising from 79 in 1890 to 214 in 1908. Surrey were one of the busier counties over this period. As well as looking to play 30 Championship matches each year by 1908, they also looked to play two matches each year against the principal touring side, and also to play both Universities at least once, and preferably twice (home and away), in each season. 3 Adding in their early-season matches against London County, or against an equivalent side styled ‘W.G.Grace’s XI’ or ‘Gentlemen of England’, their total number of first-class fixtures each season between 1900 and 1908 was between 33 and 36. Overall, between 1890 and 1908, Surrey arranged 551 first-class matches, a figure exceeded only by Yorkshire with 565. No other county had arranged more than Lancashire’s 487. And whereas some counties used several grounds for their home fixtures - Yorkshire, for example, usually used seven or eight home grounds in each season - Surrey used only a single ground for all their home matches. The Oval was Surrey’s only home ground: no home county matches had been played anywhere else since 1854. Its location and standing meant that it was also in demand for other high-profile fixtures – a Test match in every Australian season and in the South African season of 1907, an annual Gentlemen v Players match in mid-July, the annual Champion County v The Rest fixture from 1903, and occasional other first-class matches such as Surrey v England in 1895, and non-Surrey fixtures involving the Philadelphians in both 1897 and 1903. Until 1905, The Oval was also the only home venue used by Surrey’s Second XI, and was also used for between six and ten Club & Ground fixtures each season. Surrey CCC also made it available for an occasional ‘day let’ to worthy clubs and organisations from within the local community or wider afield in Surrey. In summary, by 1909 The Oval was hugely in demand by a county club 2 The dispute related to what in modern football parlance would be referred to as an alleged ‘illegal approach’ by Somerset to the Surrey player Bill Montgomery. 3 Between 1890 and 1908, Surrey played 45 first-class matches against the Universities - almost twice as many as any other county apart from Sussex (39). Surrey in 1909