The Summer Field

106 severe affliction’ he had to move around in a cart. He ‘seemed to take the greatest interest in the game and repeatedly called some of the young players on the Derby side to him to give them advice’. We must hope that those youths had the compassion to appreciate that Redgate’s well-meant words were as necessary to him as them. Just as Britain needed all the ingredients of the Industrial Revolution together – steam power, canals, capital and labour - coaching was one more necessary ingredient for the modern game, besides the press, the post and the railways. W.G.Grace in the 1850s, like his earlier brothers, had his Uncle Alfred Pocock as coach (‘He was a great enthusiast in the game, you know, and taught us the correct style’, WG recalled in 1895). If your family lacked an ‘Uncle Pocock’, a national market in cricket and other tutoring was springing up. In July 1868 the Derby Mercury reported J.W.Burnham, ‘an excellent coach’ and ‘now an old hand’, as he had finished a fifth season with a club and school in Suffolk. The Mercury quoted what was evidently a reference, from a vicar: ‘… he not only knows how to play every ball but is able to teach his pupils how to play each ball to the best advantage.’ Already cricketers and schools alike understood that playing and teaching ability did not always go together. Before 1900 good coaches were running ‘nurseries’ such as at Little Lever collieries, named in obituaries of Jimmy Hallows (1873-1910) for giving that Lancashire all- rounder a start. The Green Un in Sheffield, answering its own question in 1911 why Kent was so strong, mentioned ‘a central nursery at Tonbridge where young cricketers are coached and encouraged in every possible way’. Coaching Dorset Juniors Cricket Club, 1914. Note the bat is rather large for the boy standing.