tasting bitter ashes in the mouth” – he told the tale through rainy days and sunny days. The professionals, with a no-fours-before-lunch philosophy resulting in a scoring rate of below 2.5 runs per over, put it differently: “What we want in Yorkshire and Lancashire matches is fair do’s – no umpires and fair cheating all round,” Kilner is alleged to have said. And the crowds, vast numbers packing the grounds so that on August Bank Holiday Monday 1926 at Old Trafford 38,600 people paid, the total number being estimated at 45,000. Bramall Lane, too, attracted its hordes. Leyland found the barrackers on the Sydney Hill small beer compared to the Roses. “They should come to Sheffield on Bank Holiday and hear t’ crowd there. Why, compared to them, those folks on t’hill sounded to me as harmonious as Huddersfield Choral Society.” The attendances beggar belief: 67,000 over three days at Old Trafford in August 1920, 20,000 on the August Saturday at Old Trafford in 1921 when rain prevented play on the Monday, 26,000 on August Monday at Bradford in 1923, 20,000 on the Saturday and 30,000 on Whit Monday at Headingley in 1924 with 36,000 on the Monday of the Old Trafford return, 36,000 on Whit Monday 1925 and 25,000 on the Bramall Lane Saturday in 1925. More than 30,000 at Old Trafford on August Monday 1928, 25,000 on Whit Monday 1933 at Old Trafford, 20,000 at Bradford on August Monday 1935 and 30,000 on August Monday 1938 at Old Trafford. From the resumption after the war, the clashes rang with outstanding individual performances. Robinson took nine for 36 at Bradford in 1920 and Holmes made two centuries in the return at Manchester when Spooner provided a glimpse of the Golden Age with 62 and 63. Encounters were tense. Never more so than the final day of the August match at Old Trafford in 1922. AA Thomson found it “a perfect example of the Yorkshire and Lancashire struggle so tightly locked in a wrestler’s grip that neither side could move and often did not seem even to try.” Richard Binns thought it “the queerest Lancashire v Yorkshire match I ever personally saw. To this day I have not been able to arrive at a wholly satisfactory opinion of the incidents that marked the closing stages of it.” Binns held that some hateful goblin of uneasiness presided over the game and must have grinned with unholy glee at the strange and malodorous twist that he gave to the affair. It was a low scoring match with the bowlers generally in command. The second day, Monday, was lost to rain and on the final afternoon Yorkshire needed 132 for victory. They were without their captain Geoffrey Wilson, who had been staying at the home of Myles Kenyon, his Lancashire counterpart and had fallen ill with appendicitis. The match swung Lancashire’s way. By 6.30pm Yorkshire had slumped to 98 for eight: 34 still required with one wicket left. Kenyon requested the extra half hour, surely ample time to take one wicket. But Wilfred Rhodes, who had come in at the fall of the third wicket, was batting well and he was partnered by Rockley Wilson, master-in-charge of cricket at Winchester, who played for his county during the August holidays. Rhodes was aged 44 and Wilson 43, past their best perhaps but still possessing immense character and experience. Rhodes was no stranger to last wicket tension, having partnered Fred Tate and George Hirst in losing and winning causes in the 1902 Ashes. Time moved inexorably on and the total crept up but still that vital wicket did not fall. Now it was Yorkshire scenting victory but then only three runs came in five overs as they clung on, desperate to avoid defeat. When Cecil Parkin prepared to bowl the last over of the match, Yorkshire, 127 for eight, needed five runs with Rhodes on strike. Parkin’s first four deliveries Roses in Bloom 70