Chapter Thirteen End of the Golden Era No county epitomised the spirit in which cricket was played during the second period of the Golden Age more than Kent. Attractive and enterprising, they were champions in 1906, 1909, 1910 and 1913 and runners-up in 1908 and 1911. For a decade it was a team of superb balance but it took time to rise from the bottom of the table in 1895 to its strongest position since the days of Mynn, Felix and Hillyer. A great deal of credit went to Captain William McCanlis, coach at the Tonbridge Nursery which produced Colin Blythe, James Seymour, Edward ‘Punter’ Humphreys, Wally Hardinge, Jack Hubble and Frank Woolley. Early in Canterbury Week 1896, the Kent committee met in Lord Harris’s tent and Frank Marchant, the county captain, proposed they should negotiate with Tonbridge Cricket Club for some young players to take part in matches at the Angel Ground. Thus the nursery was born. Seven players, Blythe, Arthur Fielder, William Fairservice, Seymour, Humphreys, Woolley and the wicket-keeper Fred Huish were regular members of the four Championship-winning teams and Jack Mason, Kenneth Hutchings and Edward Dillon played in three of them. Skippered in turn by Cloudesley Marsham, Dillon and Lionel Troughton, Kent were more than a match for the best with Fielder’s pace, the left-arm spin of Blythe and Woolley and a blend of amateur style from Cuthbert Burnup and Hutchings allied to steady professionalism from Seymour, Humphreys and Hardinge coming to the fore at various periods. Such a team attracted the holiday crowds but Kent had gone through a lean period, despite the presence of the three Hearne brothers, George, a left-arm bowler and left-handed batsman, Frank, a right-handed batsman and useful round-arm bowler and Alec, who developed from a leg break and, later off break bowler into a sound batsman. The Hearnes’ father, ‘old George Hearne’, had been groundsman at Catford Bridge where Kent played their early home matches but it was Canterbury which provided the sons with one of their greatest triumphs. They were all in the Kent side which was the only county to defeat the 1884 Australians. Kent were dismissed for 169 but Alec Hearne struck back with five for 36 and after Lord Harris (60) and Frank Hearne (45) steered the home side to a total of 213, the tourists were dismissed for 109, James Wootton taking three for 21 and Alec Hearne two for 30. The Australians returned to Canterbury during the August Bank Holiday of 1886 (they lost by ten wickets after George Hearne made an unbeaten 53 and Wootton took ten for 100 in the match), in 1888 and 1890, Kent succumbing each time to the bowling of Turner and Ferris, and 1893, when Alec Hearne, five for 35, reduced them to an all out total of 60 in their second innings, Kent winning by 36 runs. Kent spent their Whitsuntides at Bramall Lane from 1884 to 1887. Alec Hearne, then only 21, took five for 13 and eight for 35 as they cruised to an eight-wicket victory in two days in 1885, only for Bobby Peel and Tom Emmett to avenge the defeat two years later. A crowd of 6,000 watched the second day’s play, when Yorkshire, needing 105 to win, lost five men for 42, the hard-hitting George 54