The Summer Field

168 And yet; was ‘The Voice’ so hated because sometimes he was right? As at Aston Unity in the Birmingham league in May 1909, when Walsall made 96 for six in nearly two hours; when the crowd cheered the first run in ten minutes, and sarcastically warned the batsmen to be careful? * One sort of spectator was always welcome. In May 1908 ‘Looker On’ of the Sheffield Green Un reported from Fenner’s, where Yorkshire played Cambridge University. ‘Smith’s sister pays him a visit and quite suddenly – Miss Smith having sound pretensions to good looks and wearing her frocks with distinction – Smith finds that he is a much finer fellow than he imagined and finds quite a number of other men quite ready to show your sister round old man, if you like.’ On Saturday, July 30, 1910 Will Richards was at Wilford outside Nottingham with St Stephen’s club. Arthur Iremonger, brother of the Nottinghamshire players Jimmy and Albert, made 88 not out of Wilford’s 132. Richards asked to go in late but his captain asked him and Ernest Beardsall ‘to knock runs off quickly’. He was out for three. Did he have something else, or someone, on his mind? ‘On the seats was a clinking girl in black. I had kept my eye on her during the match but a fellow named Rees persisted in his attentions. I did get a word in at least but our converse was all too brief and I could not find out anything about her.’ There was more to life than women – the next day Richards and his friend Cis (who was caught first ball at Wilford) set off on a cycling holiday to Land’s End. Even if you were drawn to the field to get away from women, some men evidently liked women. What did the women have to say? Watching