The Summer Field

44 money merchants’, as the Sheffield Green Un columnist Athleo called the professionals in July 1911, were only ever half of the transaction; someone had to offer the money. Some resisted. In May 1909 The Waffler of the Walsall Observer interviewed 77-year-old John Brown, former 30-year captain of Walsall club, who had played with The Waffler’s father against All-England in the near-prehistoric days of George Parr, Felix and Julius Caesar. On settling in Walsall in 1856 he ignored offers of professional engagements at Newcastle, Louth, Liverpool and Dublin, ‘a piece of self-sacrifice which should never be forgotten’, The Waffler wrote. Yet even George Parr, a former captain of the All-England eleven, claimed an independent attitude to playing for a living. When asked in old age in the 1880s by the journalist J.A.H.Catton, what made him take to cricket, Parr replied: ‘Because I didn’t like work.’ In truth professional cricketers seldom played except for money. W.E. Astill gave small change to a Loughborough man’s letter in February 1936 asking if the Leicestershire veteran could bring a county eleven to play for a ‘hospital cup’ – a game for charity, in other words. Astill answered that he was organising games in the county for fellow veteran George Geary’s benefit: ‘It seems to me rather difficult to mix a Charity Gate with George’s Benefit but I certainly would bring the county XI over some time during the summer for his Benefit.’ The best Astill could offer was ‘an Autographed Why Cricket? Somerset, 1936: plenty of difference as expressed in clothes. Left to right, back: Harold Gimblett, Bertie Buse, Ernest Falck, Bill Andrews, Bert Hunt, Horace Hazell. Front: Arthur Wellard, Laurie Hawkins, Reggie Ingle (captain), Wally Luckes, Frank Lee. Inset: Mandy Mitchell-Innes and Jack White.