1877 matches, WG Grace taking six for 77 in the North’s second innings in the latter year, and in spite of the low scoring on the infamous Lord’s pitches, the Whitsuntide spectators – 10,858 paid their sixpences on the 1878 Monday, North winning by three wickets – generally received value for money. An exception was the 1879 fixture, set apart by MCC for Alfred Shaw’s benefit. Wisden left nobody in doubt as to the reason why in an evocative description of a day when no play took place: “It was foul, very foul, for it rained heavily throughout that day, evening and night; it was the most dismal, dreary, depressing, drenchingly wet Whit Monday the oldest holidaymaker could remember; not one gleam of hope shone throughout that wretched day; all was rain, rain, rain; success was soakingly swamped out from all the many outdoor amusements arranged to attract the holiday thousands. No cricket could possibly be played at Lord’s ground, and of the 1,105 cricket enthusiasts who paid their admission 6d on that wretchedly wet day, all – or all who chose to ask for them – received re-admission checks for the Tuesday or Wednesday.” Nearly 2,000 turned up on a dreary Whit Tuesday to see play start at 2.45pm and the weather was fair on Wednesday when the paying attendance was 3,262. North won the match, Shaw taking six for 39 and eight for 21 – and was granted the proceeds of a later match as a result of WG’s generosity. Oxford University experienced the devastation the weather could cause when they met MCC at Cowley Marsh, Oxford on Whit Monday 1877. They were all out for 12 (albeit one man short) on a rain-ruined pitch, faring little better in their second innings which produced only 35. Morley’s left-arm pace brought him a match analysis of 13-14 – seven for six and six for eight. MCC won by an innings, the match ending in a day. North were decisive in 1883, Edmund Peate’s slow left-arm bowling proving too much for the South, although WG made 64 in their first innings of 128. Lancashire’s Jack Crossland, with his controversial action, took 14 wickets for North in 1884 but finished on the losing side. In the 1885 Whitsun fixture at Lord’s, South defeated North by nine wickets in a benefit game played for Fred Morley’s widow and children. Morley’s was a sad tale. He started his career with the All England Eleven, graduated into the Nottinghamshire side and was regarded as the best pace bowler in the country by 1875. After a fine season in 1882, he was selected for Ivo Bligh’s tour of Australia the following winter, which saw the creation of the Ashes. The England party sailed on the SS Peshawur , which, on 15 October 1882, was in collision with the Madras-bound Glenroy off Colombo. The Glenroy ’s captain was later found to be at fault and after towing the badly damaged ship to Colombo, the Peshawur resumed her voyage with seemingly only a barman injured. Morley, however, never appeared fully fit, although he played in three of the four Test matches, and in February 1883 – four months after the collision – he was diagnosed with a broken rib. He had been treated by several doctors previously who failed to discover the injury. Morley received medical treatment at MCC’s expense when he returned to England but he could play in only a couple of matches. His condition declined and he died of congestion and dropsy on 28 September 1884, aged 33. There was little doubt that the undiagnosed rib injury had been a contributory cause. North avenged this defeat in a remarkable game in 1886. They lost nine wickets for 148 before Parnham (90 not out) and White (62 not out on his first-class debut) each made the highest score of their brief careers in a last-wicket partnership of 157. Despite WG’s presence as captain, South struggled and were North v South 22