Cricket 1882

$ 3 8 CRICKET; A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. AUGUST 24, 1882. M OD ERN H A R R O W C R IC K E T . T heke is a strange, almost weird charm, which possesses the mind when overlooking the champagne country which lies below the churchyard at Har­ row. It is almost impossible to define the peculiar sadness of the scene, which is at the same time one of great beauty. Well might Lord Byron chose this vantage spot for his earliest poetical meditations. Well may the old Harrovian of the present, fresh probably from London city, rejoice when he breathes in the air as it comes straight from the north, and ponder over his own past, wondering maybe where are the kindred spirits gone whose forms are not lost to memory, even if Father Time has thrown his mantle over the past wherein they flourished and played their part in the little world of school life. But the cricketer’s eye involuntarily rests on a visible corner of the cricket-field, calliug to his mind’s eye the forms of those who formerly walked, talked, played, and then went out into the wide, wideworld, to make their own ways, rough or smooth ; and it is of some of these we would begin our discourse in this paper, not forgetful that the personal governs most of our hearts and therefore guides our sympathy. Going to write upon Harrow cricket are you,” says an aged pavilion critic. “ Then I shall read of Lord Byron and other great and gifted people, and be taken back to the days of my own youth when cricket wascricket.” “ Not abit ofit,” we' must reply to that worthy. The writer only pre­ tends to tell of what he himself has seen. In common with most other old Harrovians he has a respect for the names of Vernon, Long, Broughton, and Reginald Hankey ; something near akin to enthusiasm for those of Ponsonby and Grimston ; and yet he is about to begin his recol­ lections at a comparatively recent date. With regard to the older period, most students of cricket literature know that Mr. Vernon was a crack batsman, Long a hard-hitter, and Harenc the Harrow bowler, who was facile princept amongst public school men when round-arm bowling first came in, and thi 3 without denying that many a good man’s efforts have sunk into unredeemed oblivion. Who, for instance, outside a certain circle of Harrovians, has ever heard of Mariilier to a degree sharing with the unequalled V. E. Walker the reputation of being the best fieldsmen the school has ever possessed, while, for the matter of that, the present head-master, Dr. Butler’s, cricket abilities have been merged in the general success of hia career, and so passed into comparative forgetful­ ness. We shall, however, never forget the catch at point which disposed of Waller in 1857. The match we believe to have been the Old Harrovians. But to our subject: In 1856 there was no Eton and Harrow match, but the latter school had an annual contest with the M.C.C. at Lord’s. Why the in­ teresting game lapsed is as difficult to understand as is the fitful and happily unsuccessful opposition to its continuance. Henry Arkwright, who met an untimely death in Switzerland; the two Langs, George and Robert; W .C . Clayton (afterwards a brilliant officer of the 9th Lancers, whose fatal accident at polo in India will be fresh in the memory of many amongst u s); H. M. Plowden, A. VV. T. Daniel (also taken from the many friends who loved and honoured him), are amongst the best known cricketers who flourished at Harrow between 1856 and 1860. Of these, Robert Lang had perhaps the more memorable career. He was, indeed, a grand fast bowler both in style, pace, and regularity. On his day, he might, ac­ cording to oompetent opinion, be classed with Jackson, Tarrant, or even, to come down to a later period, with Freeman. For one season, we think it was 1856, R. Lang’s bowling was not seen at its best, but he subsequently dealt deadly havoc amongst Oxford wickets when playing for Cambridge, at Lord’s, and took his part in Gents v. Players at a time when the Gentlemen were terribly over matched by the prowess of Carpenter and Hayward. Lang’s fast bowling at one end, and Plowden’s slow round-arm break-backs at the other, was found difficult to score from on the Harrow ground, and with their after prowess before us, it is not wonderful that such should have proved the case. The scene is still in the mind’s eye of the writer how, when Cambridge were struggling for supremacy with the Surrey Eleven (not possibly at it very best, but still a strong team), the old Harrow bowler got rid of three men in three balls, the third, H. H. Stephenson, throwing him his hat as he left the wicket. No mean feat this on the Oval, as cricketers will allow. Most of the other Harrow cricketers of this above- mentioned period have made names for themselves in the cricket world, this being specially the case withR. D. Walker, W. F. Maitland, and I. D.Walker. We remember the former gentleman’s first debut in a match of importance at Harrow, when, playing in 1858 as substitute for the Household Brigade, he kept the school eleven out in the field. W. F. Maitland, too, made an early impression on the minds of his compeers by catching Daniel at sharp shoit-leg oft Robert Lang, when the ball was hit with the velocity natural to a well-timed leg-hit off an express pace bowler. Of V. E. and I. D. Walker, together with their services to cricket, it will become our pleasant task to descant when in a future paper we dwell upon the fortunes of Middle­ sex cricket; but the Middlesex captain’s love for his old school is as well-known as his reputation as a cricketer is secure. For a time Harrow cricket fell more or less under a shadow. Not that the system was wrong in any way, but the individual excellence was not present to assert its natural supremacy, while we fear that from time to time fielding was not practised with ancient vigour. Careful observers longed for the presence of a Humphreys, and looked wistfully for a bowler of equal velocity to Lang or Hodgson, the latter of whom had done great execution amidst the light blue ranks when the Eton and Harrow match was first revived. But the tide was destined again to turn, and we have to record the prowess of Stow (the peerless captain) and his strong team ; of Money, a remarkable slow under­ hand bowler and sound batsman ; of Hornby, the pluckyandgiftedlittlecricketerjof F. C. Cobden,the fast bowler with a natural and effective spin, of whom it was said by a small Harrow boy, interrogated as to whether his school hero was related to the great Cobden, “ He is the great Cobden.” It is a strange truth, but nevertheless a fact, that Cobden’s fame as a cricketer was earned when little was left to him as a bowler but pace, straightness, and the power of sending down a good yorker. When he succeeded in snatching the University match out of the fire, it was by reason of ready resource and presence of mind, rather than through the posses sion of the extraordinary gifts which he had formerly possessed when a Harrow boy. We must, moreover, come nearer to our own times, and tell of A. J. Webbe, who nearly played Eton alone ; of the Kemps, Henery, Shakerly, and others whose merits, if unrecognised, will become apparent to those who meet them in the cricket field. But the critic who glances over these pages may fairly remark at this point, “ You have been at once too personal and too kaleidoscopic. Your recollections cover a long term of years, and yet teach us little.” In extenuation we would urge that they deal with matters of local history in­ teresting to many readers of C b i c k e t . The first Lord Lytton, in his political poem, “ St. Stephen’s,’’ asked, “ What gives the past the haunting charms which please ? ” and goes on to tell us in effect that the story of individual lives frequently redeems from oblivion that which would be thought but trite and trivial if enacted in the immediate present. But there are considerations outside the merely local and personal interest which clings to our subject. How much has Harrow cricket done to improve the game generally, and how far has the school held its own amongst its compeers?— and we have not space completely to ventilate this part of our subject. In the days of Nethercote and Broughton, aye, and to a degree even in those of K. E. Digby, school cricket emanated but from the three centres of Eton, Harrow, and Winchester, Each school was held to possess its own style, each its own peculiar merits. But of later years com­ petition has altered all this ; Rugby, Marlborough, and Cheltenham have long claimed an ample share of cricket honours, which Uppingham and Clifton again dispute with them—and yet on the whole the older schools something more than hold their own. We must most decidedly demur to the ruling of the able critic who, writing in C r i c k e t two weeks since on “ What the Australians teach us,” somewhat derided the later efforts of Eton and Harrow boys. It were vain to expect the excellence of a Money or Lubbock when mud is the theatre of athletio effort instead of the quick grounds on which true play can alone be learned. As for bowling—“ It comes not, oh, it comes not,” is alike the cry from the suburbs of London, the hopfields of Kent, the arable lands of Sussex and Surrey, as from the Gloucestershire pastures. We are not quite sure the real article exists'in a native form so far north west as Lancashire. Therefore it is that we claim due credit for such bowling as the Harrovians at Lord’s in 1882, whenMoncrieffe and Sanderson kept their respective ends up so well. Nor should the future be clouded by the presage of disaster, so long as a system founded on sound principles prevails, leading to careful fielding and catching, together with well considered practice in the art of bowling straight, and with good pitch. Strength cannot be artificially created, and there­ fore, so far as batting is concerned, many a youth will fail to make his mark early, and stand con­ demned by critics destined in the future to sing pseans over his well-earned triumphs. As for the school match at Lord’s between Eton and Harrow, considered in reference to the diatribes hurled against its existence, without approving of the luxuries of Ascot Heath being imported to St. John’s Wood, we may yet notice the fact that, amidst the aforesaid vast picnic, the stands and other vantage grounds are crowded with anxious and attentive spectators of the-so called miserable cricket. And we state this, disapproving most intensely of thelately adopted system which, by scattering one thousand tickets gratis amongst the Eton and Harrow boys, has led to the importation of an element to Lord’s something akin to the rough bands who defy civilization on the Thames Embankment, otherwise there would be no waving of light and dark blue flags, or low squabbling after the match was over. The M.C.C. should surely see to this. It is impossible to close this paper without an allusion to the recognition about to be made of the pre-eminent services Lord Bessborough, the eminent Harrow coach, has rendered to Harrow cricket, and, indeed, to the game all over the world. Some may know the game in theory equally well, others point to the test of superlative success as having been claimed by their scholars claiming preference over even the long roll of sound cricketers who hail from the hill whereon is situated Charles II.’s visible church, and, indeed, the individual roll of pre-eminent old Etonians will equal, if not surpass, that of Harrow. But no judges or practical teachers can nevertheless claim to wield the magician’s wand which Frederick Ponsonby has b o long held in precious possession. Seo that hard-hitting, cross-swiping youth to­ day, and three weeks hence you may observe him at Lord’s, furnished with all the ordinary precaution which experience has enjoined on batsmen. The left shoulder is forward, the right foot firm, and if special excellence be denied to the boy whose powers are but mediocre, still there is the good cricket, there the sound theory put into practice. Old Harrovians will crowd to send their contributions to the fund which is to provide a portrait of Lord Bessborough for the Vaughan library at Harrow, but we venture to hope that it may not be long before a companion picture hangs at the side, being that of a faithful friend and staunch admirer. We may be forgiven for once again indulging in personality, when wo mention the name of tho Hon, Robert Grimston, whose adherence to the