Chapter Eight Roses in Bud Nottinghamshire and Surrey inherited the mantle of North against South in their 19th century battles for supremacy but a greater rivalry was developing on either side of the Pennines. Matches between Lancashire and Yorkshire – the Wars of the Roses, red for the Lancastrians, white for the Yorkists - came to epitomise the Bank Holiday fixtures, not least because of the gifted pens of Sir Neville Cardus and AA Thomson. Epic tussles described by Cardus in The Manchester Guardian , and Thomson, frequently through his step-uncle Walter, enriched cricket’s literature and captured the flavour of one of the game’s oldest feuds. The fixture came relatively late to the holiday calendar, a decade after the Nottinghamshire-Surrey encounter. Earlier clashes date from 1867 and the scorecards of old reveal bowlers’ matches and the development of Lancashire’s great AN Hornby-RG Barlow opening partnership. Standards touched the heights. Martin Bladen Hawke, later the Seventh Lord, was captain of Yorkshire from 1883 until 1910 and president from 1898 until his death in 1938. Tom Emmett, William Bates, George Ulyett, Edmund Peate and Bobby Peel of Yorkshire and Hornby, who was England’s captain in the Ashes match of 1882, Barlow, AG Steel, Johnny Briggs and Richard Pilling from Lancashire - such quality ensured outstanding cricket. Yorkshire faced Derbyshire over six consecutive August Bank Holidays from 1878 to 1883 before they were succeeded by Lancashire for the next couple of years. Kent enjoyed fixtures with both Roses counties before, in 1892, the foundations were established. That season Yorkshire won the Whitsuntide game and Lancashire exacted satisfying and impressive revenge at Old Trafford. Appetite was whetted but nobody was prepared for the remarkable struggle at Manchester during the 1893 August Bank Holiday, witnessed by Thomson’s step-uncle Walter. Lancashire had won at Headingley but by the time of the return fixture they were second to Yorkshire in the Championship table. The match started on Monday and 22,254 people passed through the turnstiles, the attendance being estimated at 25,000. The pitch was slow and difficult and each side had completed an innings by the close: Lancashire 64, Yorkshire 58, rain having held up play for a time. It was a nightmare for batsmen and there were bowlers of high calibre to exploit the misery: George Hirst, Peel and Ted Wainwright for the visitors and Briggs and Arthur Mold on the home side. After Lancashire were put out for 50 in their second innings, Yorkshire, needing 57 to win, started their quest just after one o’clock. Arthur Sellers and Stanley Jackson began with 24 in 16 minutes before Jackson was run out. The ball hit his pad, an appeal for lbw was rejected and Jackson, having run halfway up the pitch, found Sellers rooted at the other end thinking his partner had been given out. Six wickets were down for 42 at lunch and the tension mounted during the afternoon until, with six needed, Yorkshire had one wicket left. Their chief tormentor was Briggs, who found the deteriorating pitch ideally suited to his left-arm spin. Their hopes rested on Ulyett, long-serving all-rounder, Ashes veteran and, although in 35