The Summer Field

8 Chimneys and Fields forefinger when I did verily believe that I did utter a cry indicative of pain. The next Ball did come very rapidly and I did strike at it with great vengeance when lo! the Stumps behind me did fall in various directions. I was out of course. I did then retire and did make my Way to the Marquee where I consoled myself with a Pipe and a Glass of Ale until the whole of the Bachelors were got out when I was again summoned to the Arena as a fielder: but in that capacity I fear I did not greatly shine … It turned worse for him. A high catch came Pips’ way, but hit him on the thumb and he dropped it, ‘whereupon one forward Urchin did call out Muff in a very loud voice … great laughter did ensue and if my friend Davis had photographed me at that moment I have no doubt that I did look somewhat sheepish although I mentally exclaimed, better luck next time. Shortly after another ball did come very swiftly through the air and in very dangerous proximity to myself but conscious to do my best I did Boldly endeavour to stop it with my Straw Hat: but judge my mortification when I found that it did go right through the crown of the same.’ Worse still, when the ball ran along the ground towards him, he put his foot out, only for the ball ‘to take an Eccentric and Unlucky course on to the tip of my nose’. He bled on his waistcoat and pantaloons: ‘... I was compelled to beat a retreat obtaining the laughter of the boys and the Sympathy of the more Sedate.’ The married men won. The players and friends went to the village inn, ‘the sign of which is the Duck and Dormouse’, where Pips ate and drank, ‘and cannot tell how I did arrive at my lodging’. When Pips woke, he ‘was troubled with Great Thirst’. His friend the parish clerk helped him on with his clothes. Pips worried that he had sung too much, drunk ‘more Whiskey Toddy than usual’, and made an ass of himself. The clerk reckoned that Pips ‘only required a little more practice to become one of the England eleven’. With a flattened nose and aching limbs, Pips felt too old to try ‘the healthy but somewhat dangerous Pastime of Cricket Playing’ again. He gave the clerk a ridiculously large cheque for £10 (thousands of pounds in 21 st century money) for ‘the honour of being a life member of the Leenwood cum Poplington cricket club’. * The Mr Pipses of this world belong to cricket as much as Hobbs and Bradman; such generous visitors ought to be welcome at any club. And doesn’t every cricketer want a fool in his team, if only to feel better about himself? The anonymous satirist had spotted everything: the vanity and drunkenness of players, the mocking onlookers suggesting that country folk were not as contented as everyone supposed, and the lesson that cricket was best left to the young and able. The watchers that found Mr Pips funny relished any misfortune. In August 1845, when eleven of the Ashbourne club in Derbyshire hosted 12 of Uttoxeter from Staffordshire, according to the Derby Mercury rain meant the players were often ‘obliged to flee for shelter to the marquee … amidst the laughter of the more fortunate spectators’. Some spectators have always been know-alls. When