History of Bucks CCC

Newport Pagnell in 1868. Mention should also be made of HC Maul. As a 17 year-old he made his debut for Bucks in 1867, going on to play a few useful innings before launching himself on a career with Warwickshire, then a second class county, for whom he hit a number of double hundreds including 267 against Staffordshire in 1888. Ten years earlier Henry Maul had toured Australia with the team led by Lord Harris, though he did not take part in the only Test Match played. 1871 is notable as the year in which WG Grace first played in Buckinghamshire. He appeared for a Gentlemen of England team against Twenty-Two of Wycombe in a rain-interrupted three-day match played in Wycombe Abbey Park. The venue is further described as ‘Lord Carington’s’, though Haygarth errs in giving his Lordship a single ‘r’. Grace, whose brother Fred also played, made 89 in his side’s total of 219. Wycombe Abbey had earlier hosted a match against a relatively weak United All England Eleven in 1866 when they had beaten Twenty-Two of the Wycombe Amateur Club with Whale by 36 runs. WG Grace and his brother were back in the county in 1872 playing for a strong United South of England Eleven, who beat Twenty-Two of Aylesbury by an innings and 27 runs. There was a further fixture in 1874 when the visitors were again successful, on this occasion winning by eight wickets. Once again the two Graces were playing and other leading players to appear in both matches were H Jupp, R Humphrey, E Pooley, H Charlwood, James Lillywhite and J Southerton. For the Aylesbury team, Tom Plumb played in both matches and Tom Hearne in the second, but none of the other local players had played for the county side. The demise of the first County Club With an influential committee and a string of successes on the field - 15 victories were recorded offset by only five losses - Bucks appeared to have all it needed to prosper, but after 1871 the County Club seems to have sunk into terminal decline. The reasons for this are not readily apparent, though many of the better players did not owe allegiance to only one county. The Marshams all played for both Oxfordshire and Northants, while Fitzgerald was the leading light in the formation of the Hertfordshire County Club in 1876 and Edward Drake also played for that county. Even as true a Bucks man as Henry Bull, the secretary, turned out at some time for Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Northants! The apparent demise of the whole county organisation in Bucks certainly contrasted with a club game that was going from strength to strength. All the major towns were fielding teams and there were regular reports of new grounds opening, while cricket was thriving in many of the villages where it is still played today - and many where it is not. Some of the bigger clubs enjoyed an annual fixture with MCC, an occasion that was always eagerly awaited and contested with a determination well illustrated by the Vale of Aylesbury match in 1879 when fears that the weather might interfere with the game were well justified by a subsequent newspaper report that ‘running was in some instances very difficult and the ball had to be waded for in pools of water’. Scores and reports for club matches around the county lay beside those of more prestigious encounters: Eton v Harrow and the University match always merited full reports in the local press, and even details of England’s first Test Match against Australia on home soil in 1880 reached the local sports page, as did the epic encounter at The Oval two years later. Yet space would still be found for matches of quintessentially parochial interest: Aylesbury butchers v Tring butchers; Brushmakers v Shoemakers at Chesham; Hazell Watson & Viney v Social Sons of Harmony; Choir boys of St Mary’s North side v South side; Parishioners v The Establishment at Great Hampden. The demise of the first County Club 17