The Summer Field

19 in fairness, steep: Ham Hill’s and Langton Wold’s cost of a guinea a year is over a hundred pounds in 21 st century money. Most members of Beverley Town in the 1870s were paying half that: ten shillings. Some members, whether bored after they batted or because they had other things to do, left the ground without permission during a game (Langton Wold fined offenders five shillings) or turned up late at practice and expected to bat. At Beverley Town club, a committee chose the eleven, which picked their captain. ‘Every member shall be obedient to the Captain,’ said the 1872 rules, which suggested some disobeyed. Langton Wold, and Beverley Town, each ruled that members had to make good any damage to property (‘and in case of refusal he shall be expelled,’ Beverley added). Batting or bowling and fielding were only half of the skills to master; you had to be schooled in what was right on the field, and after. You needed some education – and many Victorians had none. The late-middle-aged farm labourers who did one day a week’s work scything the Ham Hill field in summer around 1830, first John Chick, and later Robert Scriven, signed for their money with a cross, because they could not write their name. What could such men do in free time – if they had any? Small wonder that Victorian working men drank, gambled, fought, even rioted, for pleasure. Yet you might enjoy a drink too much, and all those other things that right-minded men might disapprove of, but you were forgiven for playing cricket well; or, you might be little use on the field, but your fellow clubmen liked you (or your money, like the fictional Mr Pips). Someone would take offence at most things; hence Arthur Gilligan’s odd disclaimer. Clubbing Together A Punch cartoon of June 1900 poking fun at ‘Farmer Giles’ who so takes offence at being given out that he turns the players ‘hout o’ my field!’. As so often, the humour hid a truth: owners of land and the powerful generally could throw their weight around on the field.