At Whitsuntide Hobbs and his wife would stay at the Gunns’ home in West Bridgford, the cricketers walking to the ground together. When the day was done, Hobbs chatted about the game from what became a favourite fireside chair. The rest of the Surrey team usually stayed at the Black Boy Hotel. The pair might have become colleagues for Gunn had worked as a nursery attendant in Surrey, where he played club cricket. He was offered terms by the county but after talking to his uncle Billy he signed a three-year contract with Nottinghamshire. George Gunn made his county debut in the 1902 Whitsun match. He said when he first went in to bat he tried to play attacking shots. Arthur Shrewsbury, who was at the other end, came down to him at the end of the over and said: “Stick to thy defence and leave the attacking shots to me.” The Hobbs-Gunn friendship was a feature of the holiday games, when players stayed in each other’s homes and saved the hotel expenses. The crowds, too, were pleased to see familiar faces. A cornet-playing spectator heralded Nottinghamshire’s Championship success in 1907. When Surrey arrived he greeted Tom Hayward with a blast of See The Conquering Hero Comes and played Goodbye Tommy when he was out. If the matches were celebrated in music at Trent Bridge then poetry – of a sort – held sway at The Oval. Albert Craig, the Surrey Poet, was a familiar figure for many years. The Surrey-Nottinghamshire match was an irresistible subject, as in The Oval, August Bank Holiday . Darling Old Oval, once again we meet One clan to triumph, one to bear defeat Notts, dear old Notts, appear in all their pride We greet them warmly to the ‘Surrey Side’ Craig honoured past and present players in his verse: Shrewsbury, Shaw, Walter Read, Hayward, Richardson, Lockwood, Walter Lees, Neville Knox, Ernie Hayes, Herbert Strudwick among them. The poem concluded: Long may the Notts and Surrey favourites meet In cordial fellowship each other greet And when the victors have been laurel crown’d May warm and kindly feeling still abound John Gunn recalled the rivalry when, in the harsh winter of 1963, I visited his West Bridgford home and spent a memorable afternoon. He was an old and frail man but the memories remained sharp, the recollections of long-ago games easily verified by a glance in Wisden . The names resonated from the Golden Age. A left-handed allrounder, Gunn appeared in six Test matches and toured Australia. The feeling of awe that I was in the company of a cricketer who played against WG Grace remains to this day. He had good cause to remember the Surrey matches for in 1903 at The Oval he made 46 and 32 and took eight for 63 and six for 69 with his slow medium bowling, following this with 52 and six for 53 and eight for 121 at Leyton – 28 wickets in one week. Gunn said the fastest bowler he ever faced was Charles Kortright, although, of the pacemen, he thought Tom Richardson – even though his best years were over before Gunn began his career – and Bill Lockwood were better bowlers. One delivery from Kortright struck him in what is euphemistically described as the lower groin, although Gunn put it a little more colourfully. “He was tremendously quick. I once went out to bat Clash of Titans 33