Double Headers

37 longest; he was the only one of the Oxford XI to make over 100 first-class appearances in total), while Jack Barley, Ronald Lagden and Frederick Turner played no more first-class cricket after leaving University – indeed, for Barley the Reigate fixture was his last first-class match, and for Turner 1909 was his only season of first-class cricket. Lagden became one of a small number of players to end his first-class career with a Highest Score of 99*, which he achieved for Oxford University against H.D.G.Leveson Gower’s XI at Eastbourne in 1912. Two members of the Oxford side won greater renown in other sporting fields. Frederick ‘Tanky’ Turner won 15 rugby union caps for Scotland between 1911 and 1914, while Charles Hooman achieved fame as an amateur golfer, playing in the Walker Cup matches against the United States in 1922 and 1923. In 1922 he won his singles match, but lost in the foursomes to an American pair that included Bobby Jones. In 1923 he played in the foursomes only, and lost. The last survivor of the Reigate match was its top scorer Malcolm Salter, who died in June 1973 at the age of 86. And lest we forget: If evidence were needed of the toll taken by the First World War, consider that no fewer than five of the 44 players involved in Surrey’s two simultaneous fixtures in 1909 lost their lives during that conflict: Raphael, Lagden and Turner from the Reigate fixture, and Alan Marshal and Alfred Hartley from The Oval. Surrey in 1909 The Oxford University side that drew with Cambridge at Lord’s in 1909 included eight of their team from Reigate. Back row, l to r: C.V.L.Hooman, A.J.Evans, R.O.Lagden, M.G.Salter; seated: R.L.Robinson, J.C.M.Lowe, C.S.Hurst, H.A.Gilbert, A.G.Pawson; front: P.R.le Couteur, J.A.Seitz. (Courtesy of The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford: shelfmark 384 c.8/1, opp page 184).