Cricket 1893

CJKICKE'h A WEEKLY RECOKD OF THE GAME, SEPT . 14, 1893 REMINISCENCES OF CRICKET. B y RICHARD DAFT. T om B u tle r . Since my retirement from first-class cricket twelve ^ears ago, I have played a great deal in local matches. Every year I get up a good number of these matches myself in different parts of the country, and very enjoy­ able to me these games are. The recollections of these, my latter day contests, will form, when I am too old for cricket of any kind, some of the most agreeable ones of my career. Those who have been my comrades in arms in these matches I shall not be likely to forget. One in particular I shall ever think of with the kindliest feeling—Tom Butler. The Butlers were a very old family in Radcliffe, and farmed near a thousand acres of land in this district years ago. The father of my old friend Tom married a sister of the great George Parr, and had a large family (five sons and live daughters, I believe). A ll the sons were good cricketers, three of them represent­ ing, at some time or other, their native county. r,’om was the eldest of the family. Like his father before him, he was of lofty stature and powerful-build. He was when a young man one of tlie best bats in the village of Radcliffe, <ould bowl either fast round-hand or lobs with success, and was a good wicket-keeper. When I played so much county and other llrst class cricket, I had, of course, little time for minor matches ; but, nevertheless, I played in such games occasionally, in which the subject of my sketch took part. In some lew All-England matches I got up I sometimes found a place for Tom Butler in our ranks. It was, however, after my retire­ ment from the County eleven that I played most with him. A few years before this period, when he was just approaching middle life, Tom had, as most people thought, given up the game somewhat prematurely, but at the earnest request of my two sons and other friends he was once more induced to take to the game. And he took to it in downright earnest, too. At his supposed retirement Tom had given away all his cricketing clothes, and when he began again did not set up any more, al« ays appearing in the field in the clothes in which he walked about, and wearing no spikes in his boots. What fun we used to have, to be sure ! Tom was alwajs “ a fixture ” in our team. A match without Tom Butler would, in our eyes, have been no match at all. Tom was the life and soul of our little community. A man in years, he was a boy in heart and high spirits, always happy and making fun for bomeone. Tom has been absent from hngland for six or seven jears now, but we never cease to talk over tbe many anecdotes in which he was the cen­ tral figure. I 3 h all never forget one very wet day when he and I went in to bat first on a terribly wet and slippery wicket. As he had no spikes on, I was at a loss to understand how he would be able to keep on his legp. But he was equal to the emergency, and just before we proceeded to the wicket, I saw him iu a corner of the pavilion with the boy who looked after the ground. The latter was busy driving several huge flat-headed nails into the heels of Tom ’s boots. These were so long that, when they were driven in, they necessitated the wearer’ s walking on his toes until hegot on the turf, and when there, there seemed to my mind a possibility of his becoming rooted to it. Tom, however, was very confident, and as he and I went to the wicket, he called out to the players in the pavilion, that no one else need get ready to come out for the next two hours! and strangely enough, no one was required to come in at all. Our side had over 80 runs to getoff, andthese Tom and I accomplished ourselves, the nailed boots turning out an immense success. Soon after this Tom found an old pair of spikes in a lumber room of the pavilion at Radcliffe, and these he afterwards wore for years. He never was troubled with a cricket bag when playing away from home. As long as the old pair of boots were with him he was quite content. Tom notonlytook to cricket second time but to football also. Appearing in the football field, as in the cricket, in his ordinary walking clothes and the old spiked cricket boots. He would always insist on taking the position of centre-forward. When “ Skeg­ ness and Distrist ” played the 1886 Australian Eleven, the team of the former mostly came from “ the District.” Nottinghamshire was included in it although it is seventy miles away. I was commissioned to get some players, and of course Tom was one of them. On this occasion he rigged himself up in flannels for the first time for several years, and in this costume he resembled the great “ W .G.” himself. For like the champion Tom wore a black beard, aud was quite as big as Dr. Grace in person. “ Why, Tom,” I said, when I saw him practising before the match began, “ I really thought you were W .G . Grace ! ” “ You will think so before the day is over,” was Tom’s prompt and modest reply. After the second day’s play a football match was got up in the evening between two elevens, one chosen principally from our cricket team, and the other from parts of Lincolnshire. Tom, of course, played as centre-forward in this game, and played remarkably well, too. On the opposite side there was a gentleman playing full back who was bigger and heavier even than Tom. And once these giants came into collision. The shock was terrific, and both came to the ground. Neither was seriously hurt, however. The game ended in a victory for our team. (I sav “ our,” but I was only a spectator m yseif) A spectator, too, was a gentleman who occasionally wrote sporting notes for a newspaper. And the next week the following paragraph relating to the football match appeared in his Notes: —“ The visitors’ team included some first-rate players, including H. B. Daft and Tinsley Lindley, not to speak of T. Butler, the well-known centre forward from Radciiffe. During the game a slight shock of earthquake was felt, I understand, on the pier, owing to the centre forward coming into collision with a gigantic player from Grantham! ” I shall never forget going into Tom’s bedroom on the morning after this memorable match. There he sat on the side of the bed, groaning piteously, with a large bottle of “ Elliman s ” in one hand, the con­ tents of which he was applying to his netl er limbs. What with the hard day’s cricket, and what with the football, poor Tom was so stiff that he was compelled on the third day to field short slip at both ends. Running after the ball being quite out of the question. This match calls to mind a hoax which a practical joker of our team attempted to play off on Tom, by upsetting the furniture in his bed­ room, overturning the bedstead, e'c. Tom having occasion to go to his room rather earlier than was expected, and seeing its con­ dition, he, having a pretty good idea as to who the perpetrator of the joke was, quietly took his portmanteau to that gentleman’s room, of which he took possession, and the hotel being quite full, the practical joker had to undo his own handiwork before he himself could sleep in Tom’s bedroom. Once when playing a football match at Matlock, the players all got soaking wet through, owing to a tremendous storm which came on. Poor Tom Butler, who was in his ordinary olothes, was in a dreadful plight. He was obliged to go and buy a new shirt, and then proceeded to the hotel to get his other things dried. The players were in a large room in which were two large fires. Tom having taken off his trousers, put them over a chair-back near one of the fires, and proceeded to put on his new shirt, and his coat and waistcoat. In this highland costume he walked up and down the loom until his nether garments got dry. Unfortunately, they were placed so near the fire that they ignited, and could not be extinguished before one of the legs had been burnt off below the knee. This was a m«st annoying accident, and fortunately it was dark when Tom male the journey home. The8e trousers, however, made a first-rate pair of knickerbockers for future football matches. Tom as a cricketer was much better than as a player of the winter game. He was a really first rate batter with a beautiful easy style for so big a man, and made many large scores in our matches Some of our opponents who did not know him often thought that the player without flannels wonld not trouble them long; but, alas, they were often cruelly deceived! Tom has been in America for the last six years, and is, I am pleased to say, doing well. We hear from him occasionally, and he never fails in his letters to speak of the old days and of the matches in which we all took part. Shall we ever play together again, I wonder ? Be this as it’may I shall never to the last day of my life cease to think of Tom Butler as one of the kindest- hearted and best fellows I ever played either with or against. THE WANDERERS. (Late Clapham Wanderers). Matches played 25—won 12, lost 5, drawn 8. MATCHES WON. B ickey Paik Ewell ................... Enling ................... Addiscom ke........... Banstead ........... Charlton Park ... D ork in g................... Ruriiton................... Upper Clapton ... Cane Hill Asylum Crystal Palace ... ♦Eastbourne........... Runs for. Runs agst. •1328c — ..., 62 .. . 81 b 1E0 — .... 67 .. . 78 213 4Cc... 187 .. „ — 200 — . . 309 ..,. 207 f £31 . 344 ... 6 rb 387 — . . 81 ... S7 c 212 — . . 98 .. „ — 133 — . . GG .... 75/ 162 — ... 81 ..,. 65e 2c5 — . . 89 ... 3 'c •!29lc — . . R9 .. 530 275 1174/... 200 .. . 72 MATCHES LOST. Hampton W ick ........... U xtridge ................... Pallineswick.................. Streathim ... ........... H am pstead........... ... PI — ... lfG ... 139 300 93a .. ‘>41 ... — 18» 62i... 218 ... — 1*7 — ... 309 ... — 63 431... 96 ... 11* 174gf . 2*0 ... _ 239 — . . 95/t .. — 305 39 ,.+345i ... — 38:& — . .14 8e ... — 361c — . .1274 h... — i87 — ,. 2?9 ... — 3G9 195/.. . ‘-81 ... — 269 87 .. . 203 ... 87d MATCHES DRAWN . Chiswick P a r k ........... Smrey Colts ........... ^R ichm ond................... Surrey C. and G. Reigai.e P rio ry ........... ’M onbndge ........... •• *Brighton Brunswick M outh Saxons ........... * Two day m atch, t Innings dec ared closed. t No wicket down. B ^TIIN G AVERAGE3. (Five com pleted innirga.) lim es Mof-t in Inns, not out. Rune. an Inns. Aver. D. L. A. Jephson Hi ... 6 ... 1148 ... 3G9*... 45.9 1 O. Marks ..............15 ... 3 ... 345 ... 75 ... 28. <5 A.M . Latham ... 5 ... 0 ... 141 ... 48 ... 28.20 H. C olm an..............32 ... 3 ... 8lft ... 83 ... 2U.’ 4 W . T. Grant ...3 4 ... 0 ... 3*-0 ... 30i ... 27 14 F. D. Pawle ... 30... 1 ... 221 ... 59*... 24.67 A. H. Behrend ... 21... 0 ... 407 ... 60 ... 19 £8 R .B . Brooks ... H ... 1 ... 1*2 ... 37 ... 14.78 G. A. Jackson ... 21... 2 ... 2f8 ... 31 ... 14.11 J. H. Yearsley ... 18 ... 4 ... 181 ... 8i*... 13.14 R .L . Leigh-Clare IS ... 1 ... 145 ... 6ft... 12 08 W . A. L indsay... 6 ... 1 ... 35 ••• 18 ... 7 T. J. Wheeler ...1 9 ... 0 ... 84 ... 17*... e.46 Four Innings.—J. M. Gowanlock 45; H. W . Wheeler 73. Three Innings.—A. G. M cArthur 27; C. E. Jones W. L. Pare 4. Two Innines.— Capt. Flem ing 21; L. H. R oterts 17- W. D. Walker J3; G. B lizaid 10; H. J. C. Harding 1; C. W. Grant W ilson 1; F. E. 8aunders 7. One Innings - A . S. Bull 74; G. H. Blount 16; ». Faulkner 8; G. D alziel3; W. E. Hob^s 4 ; H. V. Bate 12*; B. Burton 7* ; R. T. W il?oa 5*. BOW LING AVERAGES. Overs Mdns. Runs W kts. Aver. 360.4 ... 51 ... 402 183 .,.. U ... 687 4G7.°< .,.. 80 ...1296 149.4 ... 35 ... 3i8 288.1 ..,. 45 ... 75S GO .... 33 ... 14ft 125 .,.. 25 ... 3f.9 140 .,.. i5 . .. 165 S. Colman . J. H. Yearsit „ The following also took wickets.—G .H . Jacksou, 5 for 210; G. P Joy. 2 for 30 ; F. B. Brooke, 1 for 11; W. D. W al’er, l for 28; W . L . Pare, 1 for 22, J. M. Gowanlock, 1 for 81; Capt, Flem ing, 1 for 68.