The Summer Field

17 the two sides playing on the Westwood common land outside the town in August 1861. We can be too cynical, however. In his pub afterwards, ‘battle was fought over until the very witching time of night’ and a large company ‘determined that they would keep up the national game as long as they were able to play.’ Well-off clubs ate well. Ham Hill’s accounts in 1829 included ham, beef, mutton, fowls, ducks, bread and cheese; and to drink, ale, cider and grog. You suspect that Renishaw Ironworks club in north Derbyshire tried to eat more grandly than usual at their ‘social’ in February 1907. Members brought potted meat, bread and butter, tea, coffee, and mineral water; sugar, milk, pastry, a ham (boiled by Mrs Bond who was paid to wash up), jellies, tongue, ‘snow pudding’ and oranges. * The custom of uneven or large teams was a sign of give-and-take, within customs rather than rules. Eight singles beat 11 married in Ashbourne in 1859; 11 ‘juveniles of the village’ of Bishop Burton in east Yorkshire beat seven Beverley juniors in 1861. Two teams of ten played the first game on Torquay’s new ground in July 1852. By the 1950s, anything but 11-a-side was freakish; newspapers lapped it up when men over 50 in the Vale of Belvoir in Leicestershire played their annual match 18 a side, to suit everyone who wanted to play. By contrast, when Derby police in 1860 played 19 a side, the Derby Mercury merely reported it as a fact. Other games had uneven numbers because one player (or more, or whole teams) did not turn up, even for important occasions. As so often, we have Clubbing Together An advert from The Cricketer magazine, 1939: that the makers supplied overseas touring and county teams (‘and leading Clubs and Schools, also the Public Schools XI at Lord’s’) was a selling point.