ball out of the ground through the gates which had just been opened to admit a carriage. Iddison, 44, was run out at 156 and United lost two further wickets with nine runs still needed before Frank Silcock and Thomas Sewell saw them home by two wickets – and the fund £102 better off. All was not well, however. A north-south feud developed, with Parr and the northern professionals ranged against Surrey and The Oval hierarchy. Matters came to a head when seven players resigned from the UAEE and formed the United South of England XI in November 1864. This meant the AEE-UAEE matches effectively became North v Rest of the North. The last Whitsuntide game for the Fund at Lord’s took place in 1866, MCC reacting to a further row by cancelling patronage of the annual fixture and establishing the Marylebone Professional Fund, ‘for the support of those professional players, who, during their career, shall have conducted themselves to the entire satisfaction of the Committee of the MCC’. England defeated Middlesex at Lord’s during Whit in 1867 in the inaugural match for the latter fund, WG Grace making 75 and sharing a partnership of 151 for the third wicket with the Old Etonian Alfred Lubbock (129). A crowd of 4,000 saw a dazzling exhibition from two of the finest young amateur batsmen of the day. WG was aged 18 and Lubbock 21 but while Grace’s career was to span decades Lubbock had practically given up the game by the time he was 28 in favour of a career in his family’s bank. The final match between the two Elevens for the Cricketers’ Fund was played at Old Trafford in 1867, although not at Whit, when Richard Daft made the only hundred of the series. Subsequent Whitsuntide fixtures were played at Savile Town, Dewsbury for the benefits of Robert Carpenter and Tom Hayward (1868) and George Anderson (1869). After this the United All England Eleven was disbanded. Other elevens arose but were swept away by the increasing popularity and developing strength of county cricket. The AEE struggled on, playing its final first-class match in 1878 although it existed for another decade or so. By the time of its demise more than 30 years had passed since its first encounter with the UAEE. Of the 19 matches between 1857 and 1869 each of the two elevens won eight while three were left unfinished. Nine took place at Whitsuntide and again honours were even. Much of the history of the two elevens is taken up with tortuous tales of pay rows, splits and sheer bloody-mindedness which tends to obscure the high quality of the cricket. WG Grace was in no doubt about their status. “When the two most famous elevens met reputation was at stake and both strove to put their best teams in the field. There was no half-hearted play then. Thought was put into every ball bowled, and neither batsman nor fieldsman spared himself. It was the match of the year from a player’s point of view, and crowds testified to it by turning out in thousands. It was not always so in the North v South matches. More than once an eminent player cried off at the last moment, and occasionally the sides were poorly represented.” More than half-a-century later, Sydney Pardon, editor of Wisden , added a further tribute. “In the All-England and United All England elevens we had two highly-organised teams, and either of them, strengthened by a couple of the best amateur batsmen, would have been equal to all emergencies. Looking up the scores of the matches at Lord’s between the two elevens from 1857 to 1866 I have been struck by the complete equipment of the sides at every point. Each had at least five regular bowlers – nearly every one of them first-rate according to the standard of those days.” The Best v The Best 16