The Summer Field

83 Journalism Plaindealer said it would take ‘another generation or two of hard work in the schools’ to educate a young collier or bricklayer, the typical pro’ cricketer, well enough to write his own articles. * Cricket and newspapers had grown up together; the time before press- boxes at cricket grounds was also a time before newspapers. At the All- England match against 22 of Derbyshire in July 1857, a Derby printer by permission of the ground owners published the score ‘at the Fall of Every Wicket’: ‘Also a correct statement of the whole day’s play may be had in One Minute after the stumps are drawn.’ Or, you could leave your address at the printing tent and pay to have a copy posted. The multi- edition evening newspapers in the new industrial towns and cities carried the latest news: the afternoon’s racing results, county cricket scores and London stock exchange prices. Weeklies worked on the same principle, at a slower pace. The weekly Derby Mercury, for instance asked for match reports from local teams by Monday before it went on sale on Wednesday – and meant it: in July 1869 it complained of receiving copy late on Tuesday: ‘We scarcely felt justified in stopping the press to give it insertion.’ As mid-Victorian weeklies in seaside resorts and market towns, and dailies sprang up alike, men were pioneering reporting, whether a Saturday club match that gave them the rest of the weekend to compose and push through the weekly’s letterbox; or a report on a county match added to hourly for the likes of the Sheffield Evening Star that ran four editions between 2.30pm and 7pm. From the beginning, the reporter was the eyes and ears of absent readers. A young reporter at a match for the first time can at least follow the style of his elders. He gives his impressions. When F.G.Monkland of Gloucestershire was leg before wicket at Bramall Lane in July 1875, the report added the ‘remarkable fact’ of ‘the batter’s unqualified concurrence in its justice’. To explain play, the reporter gave opinions. The Gloucestershire fielding earlier was ‘good, but the bowling was by no means dangerous’, said the Star . At the return match in Bristol in August, the Western Daily Press reported how play became ‘almost tediously slow’ when WG and brother Fred Grace batted; ‘the bowlers were well on the spot and the Yorkshire fielding was admirable throughout the afternoon’. Praise for one could easily look like criticism of another. Much depended on how carefully you worded it. As the Western Daily put it, ‘Dr Grace played with unusual steadiness’ and his ten runs in an hour astounded ‘those who know his free-hitting style’. These journalists, though generally anonymous, had reason to take care because players evidently were critics of reports, if by ‘critic’ we mean someone discussing the good and bad alike in something, rather than finding faults. In July 1875, while reporting the third day of the Yorkshire-Gloucestershire match, the Star recalled that the day before it said W.G.Grace was bowled off his pads: ‘It appears that in place of this the Leviathan slightly played the ball but did not alter its direction. This explanation is due to the bowler,’ who was Alan Hill, one of the original Test cricketers. As that line suggests, newspapers already were giving nicknames to outstanding players, something to bond newspaper, player