The Summer Field

151 Chapter Eighteen Pitches ‘…. the dream of an English lawn - as unattainable as the dream of Swiss-style democracy.’ Heinrich Boell, Missing Persons and other essays (1977) Victorians had many polite words for it. The Hull architect, cricket spectator and diarist George Thorp wrote on Thursday, June 12, 1913 of ‘fiery wicket, bumping balls, unpleasant experience’ after Pearsons eleven played Tramways club. Tavistock, at Okehampton in July 1864, chose to bat first after winning the toss, because of ‘the ground being what in cricket parlance is called lively’, the Western Daily Mercury reported. And in June 1877, a newly-laid ground at Pocklington Grammar School was in ‘such a wretched state’, thanks to the running over it, that by the visiting Beverley eleven’s innings ‘the batters had no chance’, the Beverley Guardian said. On rough and dangerously unpredictable pitches, you did not bat for fun, or for long. ‘Unfortunately there are more good clubs, or the makings of good clubs, in Burton than there are good grounds,’ said D.A.Hughes, the Burton and district league secretary, in 1950. ‘If a young player has learned the rudiments of the game at school on a reasonably good pitch, it is disheartening and discouraging for him to join a small club and attempt to play on a bad wicket.’ Les Berry called it ‘my old theme’ in the Leicestershire annual in 1951: ‘you cannot produce potential county players on bad wickets’. As Hughes and Berry implied, everyone could tell a good pitch from a bad one. Why did clubs put up with bad ones for so long? Partly, it was the Englishman’s way; you endured bad things, whether German bombing, workplace accidents or the dole. Partly, clubs only had themselves to blame. Few players were as public-spirited and as keen as Ron Turner, a former Lord’s ground staff boy who played club cricket in Grimsby before the 1939/45 war. In retirement he wrote of ‘the urge to put on flannels’ when the field was first mowed: ‘One wanders down to the ground to find the ever-faithfuls doing the work of getting the ground ship shape and a strip ready for practice.’ As so often in life, a cricket club had two sorts of men: the enthusiast that did the work of two, and the man that let him. At Renishaw Ironworks club in June 1899 the committee ruled that all playing members were ‘expected to take part in mowing and rowling [sic]. Members abitually [sic] absenting themselves not to be selected in matches’. The very fact that the committee had to make the rule, suggests that most players would not help themselves. Sure enough, in July 1900 the committee agreed