in two days. The return, Johnny Tyldesley’s benefit at Old Trafford, saw Hirst take five wickets in the first innings and then set up another Yorkshire victory with a fighting 85 on a difficult pitch. The Roses fixtures were a favourite choice for a professional’s benefit: Hunter, Wainwright, Brown, Ward, Tunnicliffe, Hirst, Haigh, Johnny Sharp and Rhodes. In 1908 at Old Trafford there was an experiment with a Saturday start which was felt to be satisfactory in that 13,000 paid, with 22,000 turning up on the Monday. It was a match which season by season brought outstanding individual performances: Rhodes’s 2,094 runs and 241 wickets against the old enemy, with 13 for 108 at Bradford in 1909, Brearley nine for 80 at Old Trafford in 1909; Hirst nine for 23 at Headingley in 1910; Spooner, twice missed before he had reached 14, 200 not out at Old Trafford in the same year against an attack consisting of Hirst, Rhodes, Haigh, Booth and Drake. And county rivals often found themselves in the same Gentlemen v Players dressing rooms or enjoying success at Test level such as the Peel-Briggs filleting of Australia at Sydney and the match-winning partnership between Brown andWard at Melbourne in 1894-95. The Golden Age began with the holiday Roses in bud. It ended with them approaching full bloom but for all the supreme artistry of the Golden Age, their richest flowering was yet to come. Roses in Bud 38