The Summer Field

16 Clubbing Together regards play’; in 1947, when Woolavington club began near Bridgwater, it took its rules from a Yorkshire cricket club handbook. Those rules then as now cover length of wicket and the like, not who could play where. It was as if Victorian cricketers agreed to play chess on a board; but did not say what chessmen were allowed. Clubmen did not like losing, even if they were not chosen. When Beverley United won their first match of the 1861 season, in August, the Beverley Guardian blamed the selector: ‘He evidently does not possess that nice discrimination which is absolutely necessary to bring matches to a successful issue.’ Men expected to be well-matched; a one-sided win was almost as unsatisfying as a thrashing. In August 1843, when Burton-on- Trent out-batted the officers of the 17 th Lancers, they called it ‘a very tame and uninteresting game’. As the Torquay Directory put it in 1857, when Bolonnoc in their return game at Torquay won on first innings 149 to 49, the Torquay men were ‘considerably over-matched’. As late as 1893, Driffield Marshall were supposed to play the second eleven at Beverley Town; only, because the first team had nothing on the card, some of the firsts played, and won by 156 for four to 57. Someone anonymous, presumably from Driffield, argued in the East Riding Chronicle : ‘This sort of thing ought to be protested against … there is nothing creditable about the achievement in demonstrating a crushing defeat upon the visitors.’ In sum, everyone was seldom happy on the same field. Clubs negotiated numbers, to make sides more even. In late September 1845 eleven of Ashbourne were to host 12 of Uttoxeter, until Ashbourne objected to one man, and in return agreed Uttoxeter could play 13. Uttoxeter still lost on first innings, 37 to 16. Ashbourne asked Uttoxeter to follow on, so that (as Ashbourne put it) they ‘might not be put to the inconvenience of remaining all night’. Though that was the custom, Uttoxeter insisted on batting last, and were 31 for six when it was so late, ‘the game became dangerous’. At a dinner in a town pub later, the teams agreed Ashbourne could have the ball as the victors (‘amidst the cheers of the meeting’). In short, customs did not bind like rules. A Leicestershire twist on that tradition, incidentally, as recalled by ‘Heywood’ in 1934, was that at an inn the match ball (‘having been washed carefully’) went in a jug, then filled with ale. Every man had to drink from the jug until empty, and the ball went to the winning captain. Perhaps that improved the beer. And the ball. Players and their friends never had far to go or long to wait for food and drink, or what one reporter in 1859 called ‘cricketer comforts’; this surely must have prompted some men to join clubs. To take one example among thousands: after that rain-shortened match at Ashbourne in August 1845, 60 men dined at the Green Man Hotel in the town, and the Uttoxeter men left for home ‘at noon of night’. In an age when food did not keep, and journeys made it a long day for the visitors, it made sense for hosts to put on a proper meal – unless they wanted to starve, when they were the guests. Often publicans had a hand in the game and an eye on the trade, such as Thomas Smith of the George Inn, in Beverley, who chose one of