History of Bucks CCC

Fortunes decline Minor counties will often struggle to assemble their best teams, and for the next few years the vagaries of overseas postings and players’ other commitments combined to reduce Bucks’ competitive potency. The 1932 champions immediately fell to 15 th in the table; the following year they slipped one place lower. A rise to ninth in 1935 was then followed by the indignity of dropping to 20 th in 1936. Brooke missed the 1933 season and never captured his best form again, Stephenson had played his last match for Bucks in 1932, Skinner could play less regularly in 1933 and by the summer of 1934 his work had taken him to India for four years. Rutter bowled manfully in 1933, but thereafter he could no longer promise to play in all the matches and he was missing altogether in 1936 and 1937. Franklin was seldom the force he had been with the bat, but the most critical decline was in the form of Edwards. In 1933 his 57 wickets were obtained at twice the cost of the previous year and, whereas between 1922 and 1932 he had taken an average of 70 wickets a season at 9.52 each, from 1934 his annual bag was only 30 and his wickets were costing 14.50. In 1935 Edwards passed his fiftieth birthday, and it was small wonder that his powers were on the wane. During these disappointing years Leslie Baker and Sam Peters were the mainstays of the batting, while the supporting cast continued to turn over as promising young men were given their chance, struggled to make much impact and then disappeared from the scene. One who batted with some consistency in the difficult years was Algie Busby, a farmer from Buckingham. As far back as 1926 Charles Clover-Brown had played for Bucks while still at Harrow, and his return on leave in 1933 was awaited with keen anticipation. The previous winter, Clover-Brown and WT Brindley had shared an opening stand of 79 for Ceylon against DR Jardine’s MCC team, when the tourists made their customary break on their voyage to Australia. For Bucks Clover-Brown made 83 not out against Norfolk in his final match, but otherwise achieved little. In 1935 it was Brindley’s time for some home leave. He returned, as he had in 1930, to take up his place in the county side, but he could not repeat the success he had enjoyed when he had first played in 1925. There were two seasons for PHC Badham, the son of the vicar of Great Missenden. Though he had played a few matches for Oxford University, Peter Badham seldom revealed his best form for Bucks. Among the more capable batsmen was AP Powell, who had played once for Middlesex in 1927. He enjoyed a fine season for Bucks in 1933, but his form soon suffered a decline. Robert Campbell, a teenage left-hander from Chesham, played for two seasons, making a century against Bedfordshire at Ascott Park in his second match in 1935, when he shared in a stand of 223 for the fifth wicket with Leslie Baker, still a county record. Campbell ended the summer as leading run-maker, but he could not sustain this good form and after 1936 he played no more. Campbell’s principal sport was rugby, at which he played war-time internationals. The bowling could no longer rely on two or three players to run through the opposition. Typifying the new regime in which Franklin would toss the ball to more of his players, AH Holliman, captain of Dulwich College in 1934, played in 30 matches in which his googlies brought him 41 wickets, but at the high cost of 26 each. Another spin bowler who devoted three seasons to Bucks was AJ Birtwell, who took 34 wickets with his leg breaks in 1934. Thereafter he proved rather expensive, but after leaving the area to practise as a solicitor in the north he went on to bowl with great success in the Lancashire League and make a few appearances in the county team. 53 Fortunes decline AH Birtwell