The Summer Field

146 his History of Warwick School in 1906. The professional coach from 1886 to 1890, named only as Shore, who umpired at games with other schools, once admitted to some ‘doubtful’ decisions: ‘They cheated out one of our men and I always gives out two of theirs for it.’ Newspapers of the day reported bad umpiring, perhaps hoping that public shaming would make umpires do better. In August 1876, for instance, the Derby Mercury reported a moral victory for South Derbyshire over visiting Riddings, 161 all out to 125 for nine: …. we are sorry to have to chronicle a most gross abuse of the power of umpire. Riddings’ highest scorer, when caught at long stop, was walking away when the umpire (‘one of their own who had temporarily taken the place of their proper umpire’) called the batsman back. South Derbyshire had to let the man bat on, but had the umpire removed. Whether fielding or batting, you had to let the wrong stand; but when batting you could make more of a practical protest, as the Albert club from Derby did in July 1876 at Wirksworth Wanderers. After three Albert batsmen were ‘unsatisfactorily dispatched’ and Albert stood at 64 for nine in reply to Wanderers’ 66, the Albert captain decided not to send the last man in ‘to the fiat of an incompetent if not unfair judge’. And when the Wanderers refused what the Mercury called the ‘reasonable request’ of a substitute umpire, the game was abandoned. Nor was the Mercury shy of pointing out ‘stupidity, or something worse’, of Wardle, the Lancashire umpire, when Derbyshire lost by an innings at Manchester in August 1873. ‘When a run out or anything else is a very fine Umpiring and Scoring An 1895 portrait of Robert Carpenter (1830-1901), Cambridgeshire batsman and later umpire.