Double Headers

12 1909 was, perhaps, an opportunity for Surrey to give up gracefully their proud record of playing all their county opponents twice in every season since 1890, apart from in four seasons where special circumstances applied. But they chose not to do so. It was also an opportunity for them to loosen their strong ties with the Universities, had they wanted to do so. But they did not do this either. Instead, Surrey in 1909 stood by a decision taken early in the fixture- making process to play all the other counties twice, and to play both Universities at home and away “if possible” – even if in doing so they stretched the limit of what was “possible” to a degree that some might now see as irrational. Surrey themselves may perhaps have sought to rationalise this decision by allowing the whole thing to be regarded as an experiment, to see how the playing of two matches simultaneously might work out in practice; or perhaps as a way of testing the market for first-class cricket in the county away from The Oval - though why do that when ‘the market’ would inevitably have split loyalties if another, and as it turned out a better, county side was playing at The Oval at the same time? But from the sources inspected, the conclusion must be that the double- header with Lancashire and Oxford University was simply the only way of accommodating the county club’s insistence on playing Oxford University at home and away in 1909. That insistence could only be honoured by doubling up Surrey’s fixtures on one occasion during the middle of the season – stretching the definition of what was “possible”, but not, as a one-off, stretching it beyond breaking-point. Perhaps the reason that the minutes are silent about the doubling-up issue is that at the time it wasn’t seen as anything particularly remarkable – it was just the way the county’s fixture list turned out, given the self-imposed constraints upon it. Whatever the reason, the decision was made: Surrey would play Oxford University twice during the season, and that meant having to play the home game away from The Oval and on dates when another county game had already been arranged. Now there were other details to sort out. GETTING READY Why Reigate? Having decided that the Oxford University match would have to be played away from The Oval, Surrey CCC had to find another ground that could accommodate it. By this time, the county had played Second Eleven fixtures on three out-grounds – at Reigate Priory CC (which had hosted one Minor Counties match in each year from 1905 to 1908 inclusive), at Epsom CC (one Minor Counties match in 1906), and at Guildford Sports Ground (one Minor Counties match in 1908). These were presumably the leading candidates for the first-class fixture in 1909. I say ‘presumably’ because the surviving Surrey records do not say anything about the selection of the venue for the Oxford match. This is surprising, given that decisions about out-ground venues for Second XI fixtures were minuted for the 1906, 1908 Surrey in 1909