Double Headers

10 Surrey in 1909 date, the full fixture list for 1909 was confirmed at the annual meeting of County Secretaries, the outcome of which was reported to Surrey’s Committee on 17 December. By Christmas the fixture list was in the public domain: the issue of Cricket dated 24 December published the programme for the season, including on 21 June three-day games between Surrey and Lancashire at The Oval, and between Surrey and Oxford University at Reigate. This same fixture list was given a degree of finality with its inclusion on page 530 of Wisden for 1909, published at the end of January 1909. Fixture congestion: the evidence Was it really impractical to find a slot at The Oval for the Oxford University fixture? Assuming that primacy had to be given to County Championship and tourist matches, the answer must be ‘Yes’. Between 3 May and the end of the University season on 7 July, Surrey were scheduled to play 17 Championship matches (eight at The Oval and nine away), and a three-day fixture against the Australians. The only three-day period when Surrey were not playing a county match between early May and early July was 13-15 May. Apart from this, and the break for the Gentlemen v Players matches in mid-July, the Surrey First XI had not a single break between the start of their season on 3 May and its end on 1 September. The 13-15 May slot was filled by the match against Oxford University in The Parks. It fell at the beginning of the University’s first-class season, and in view of Surrey’s enthusiasm to play the universities twice each, it was an easy choice to insert this match into the programme. Using this slot for Surrey’s home fixture against Oxford would have solved nothing - it would simply have shifted the problem to finding a slot for Surrey’s desired away fixture with Oxford; and besides, it would have been entirely against precedent for Oxford to have played a first-class match away from Oxford so early in the season . Meanwhile, the programme for The Oval was pretty much full to bursting too. When the First XI was playing elsewhere, The Oval was required for four two-day Second XI matches and five days of Club and Ground games. When the county’s full Committee met in October 1908, it had duly noted that The Oval was “not ... available on the dates Oxford can offer”. With a decision that The Oval was not available for a game against Oxford, a further matter fell for consideration. Was there scope for Oxford to fit in an away game against Surrey somewhere other than The Oval, without interfering with the Championship programme? The short answer is no. With the match against Surrey at Oxford now in place on 13-14-15 May, the University’s first-class season ran from 13 May to 7 July, with a series of home fixtures up to 19 June being followed (after a break between 20 and 23 June) by a block of away matches, leading up to the University Match on 5 July. As already explained, Surrey were solidly booked for the whole of this period, for County Championship matches and a game against the Australians. The fact is that there was simply no room in the two sides’ crowded fixture lists to fit in a three-day game that did not clash with some other