Double Headers

9 Surrey in 1909 that sought wherever possible to play all its county rivals both home and away each season, to play both Universities at home each season, to play one or two tourist matches each season, and to play at least some Second XI and Club & Ground fixtures on the ground as well as allowing some community use of it; and also by the wider cricketing authorities for the accommodation of around three or four ‘prestige’ matches each year, including a Test match in an increasing proportion of seasons. Surrey’s fixture list for 1909 As far as the county club was concerned, at the outset the 1909 season looked no different from earlier years. Fixture planning for the season had begun as early as July 1908, when Surrey’s Match Committee recommended that, although the match against W.G.Grace’s side should now be dropped (no doubt not unconnected to the fact that W.G. himself had now finally retired), both Oxford and Cambridge Universities should be met at The Oval. 4 Next month the club’s full Committee decided to refer back to the Match Committee “the question of playing Out and Home matches with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge”. 5 So whereas in 1908 Surrey had played only two matches against the Universities, the full Committee seemed to have been encouraging the idea of playing four such matches in 1909, despite the inevitable pressure for other fixtures at The Oval during an Australian summer. The matter bounced back and forth between the Match Committee and the full Committee over the next couple of months, and no final decision had yet been taken when, on 15 October, the full Committee resolved “that out and home matches should, if possible [my emphasis], be played against the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge”. But crucially to one of the themes of this book, that minute is preceded by this: Surrey v Oxford University “It was decided to play a Surrey XI against Oxford University in 1909 in Surrey, but not at the Oval, owing to the Oval not being available on the dates Oxford can offer.” So here is the first piece in the jigsaw that led to the double-header of June 1909: a decision to play a home fixture against Oxford University away from The Oval. Frustratingly, there is nothing in the minutes either at this time, or over the next few months, about the timetabling or choice of venue of the University match. There is nothing in the surviving minutes that even acknowledges the fact that the match would be played on the same dates as a County Championship match, let alone anything the considers the wisdom or propriety of playing two first-class matches simultaneously. All we know is that the decisions about date and venue were made somewhere between 15 October and 8 December 1908. On the latter 4 Minutes of the Surrey CCC Match Committee meeting of 27 July 1908. 5 Minutes of the Surrey CCC Committee meeting of 6 August 1908.