Cricket 1897

r 4 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. M arch 25, 1897. rocasion when I suffered in this way. It was at Birmingham after a match between the Australians and an English eleven in May, 1884, .and. the reports were mixed up somehow or other. Once an accident almost happened, but the mistake was discovered in time. Glouces­ tershire were playing Yorkshire &t More- ton-in-the-Marsh. We had some tele­ graph boys who had been pressed into the service for the occasion; they wore badges, but were ordinary country yokels. One of them carefully deposited a message of mine in the letter box, which was only cleared two or. three times a day ! Fortu- na'ely it happened that it was cleared in about twenty minutes, so that no great harm was done.” “ Don’t you find it very difficult to be as accurate as you always are in your accounts of matches ? "O ne has to be careful, but in spite of everything one can do, mistakes sometimes hs.ppen. When England was playing Australia in 1886. at Manchester, Ulyett whs batting whin, with the game a tie, he hit cu‘. at a ball from Garrett, and fome of ii' rushed round to the telegraph office, which was at the back of the stand, and amid tremendous applause we filled in our nie.-sages, ‘ England won by five wickets.’ When we came out we beheld, to our dismay, the Australians still in the Held, and another Englishman walking to the wi, k“ts. Ulyett had been splen­ didly caught in the long-field. I once read wrongly a cable message from our special correspondent in Australia, during .the visit of Ivo Bligh’s team in 1882-3. The outcome of this was that, in the Sportsman next morning, the result of the .match was reversed, though for this an error in the code word transmitted was mainly responsible.” “ What happens when you miss trains ?” “ Nothing serious, for I always have a local journalist to assist me. But although I generally cut things pretty fine it is seldom that 1 fail to catch my train. Once there was a block on London Bi idge, and I saw in my imagination my train leisurely moving out of the station, and it turned out to be a reality when I reached that terminus. I made a curious miscalculation a few years ago, when Kent were playing Yorkshire at Maid- s one. I drove up lo Cannon Street Station in a great hurry, rushed on to the platform, and found thatmy train wasontheLondon, Chatham and Dover Bailway. Of course 1 missed it. There are many more rushes, however, after a natch than before it. It often happens that, when a long journey lias to be undertaken, the opposing teams arrange a nice little sensational fiuish, so that it. is impossible to proceed to write up one’s copy in the final hour with the knowle Ige that nothing out of the common will happen. There was a case iu point last year at Leicester, in the Austra ian contest. As the next match was v. Engl md at Manchester, everybody who had 10 go there was anxious to get <'ff as soon as possible. Several times in t.ho cou-re nf t' pi secon.1 innings of Lsicesteittu. e. it looked as if we should be able to catch a convenient train, but the home team still held out. At last the end seemed near, when Geeson and Whiteside, the last men, came together, and we made ready for a rush to the station. They, however, kept up their wickets until time was called and the match drawn ; our reports had to be con­ siderably varied and iu parts re-written, and a midnight journey to Cottonopolis was the result.” “ When did your career as a literary man begin ? ” “ The first thing that I ever did in the way of writing was to make a geograph­ ical synopsis of the two Americas. As I was only thirteen years old at the time it was rather unique as a contribution. A friend of my father, J. T. Piekburn, who was then proprietor of the Daily Chronicle, was kind enough to have 300 copies of this synopsis printed for private circula­ tion. I have some of the copies still. I was always very interested in statistics, and although Ihave never been able to find time to do them as thoroughly as other men whom I know, I am afraid that I am to some extent to blame—if I am to blame—for the mass of statistics which now appears after and during every cricket season. In my younger days I confined my attention to looking after the reports of the school club for which I playeil, but the interest in statistics soon developed in me.” “ What was your first attempt as a journalist ? ” “ In 1878 I saw the match of Cambridge at Lord’s in which, thanks to Mr. Morton and others, they so completely worsted the Australians, and while there I was asked to do the averages iu connection with the Australian tour. One of the first really systematic things I did was to write articles for the Cricket and Football Times and comments on Lord Harris’s tour in Australia in 1878-9. The editor was E. C. Mitchell, now so well known as ‘ Captain Coe.’ ” “ How did you find your legal studies fit in with journalism ? ” “ Well, 1 passed the examinations, but I frequently managed to ‘ smuggle ’ myself off to Lord’s during the time that I was articled, when my chief was happy in the conviction that I wai reading hard. Of course I could not enter the rank« of journalists while I was articled, but I continued to do a fair amount of writing, and in 1879 I wrote regularly for the Sportsman.” “ Did you then write under the non de plume of ‘ Wanderer ’ p” “ Not until 1882, when Mitchell, on account of ill-health, was obliged to give up his work on the Sportsman. He was the originator of the Wednesday notes, but wrote under another name.” “ Did you begin to attend first-class matches early in life P” “ When I was a boy at school I often went to the Oval with one of the masters, named Hawley, a good cricketer, who still plays, and, I understand, plays well for Tottenham C C. I went to the Oval long before I went to Lord’s. The first im­ portant match that I saw was Gentlemen v. Players in 1873, when ‘ W .G .’ made 15S and took a lot of wickets. It was also a Gentlemen and Players’ match that I first saw at Lord’s—the contest in which G. F. Grace and W. S. Patterson made a big stand for the last wicket. In 1878 I began to go more regularly to Lord’s, and I saw the M.C.C. dismissed for 19 by the Australians. It has always seemed to me that sufficient credit has not been given to Boyle for his fine bowling. I have often spoken to him about it, but he has ii_variably said ‘ Oh no, “ Spoff ” was the man.’ A singular mistake ap­ peared in most of the papers and annuals in connection with this match—it was, ths.t the dismissal of Wild, the Notting­ hamshire player, ia the second innings was wrongfully described as by Spofforth instead of Boyle.” It is, of course, to be expected that Mr. Stanton has seen many close finishes and many strange scenes on cricket grounds. “ At Oxford two or three years ago it was so l i terly cold that the field put on their overcoat-*. There was a severe frost which, I remember, withered the ivy on the pavilion. Rylott’s benefit match, played at L >rd’s in May, 1891 took place in such hot weather that one did not know what to do to be c mfortable. Immediately afterwards the weather changed, and when I went down to Nottingham for the Whit Monday match against Surrey I found, on arriving at Kettering, that there was snow on the roofs of the houses. There had been some snow at Nottingham on the Saturday, and also, I believe, on the Sunday morn­ ing. More than once have I undertaken long journeys—notably to Bradford for a Yorkshire v. Kent match, and to Man­ chester for England v. Australia in 1890 and, more receu'ly, for a fixture between Lancashire and Somerset—without seeing a ball bowled, and the performance of a fellow pressman and myself in connection with the more important encounter in turning out 1yards of copy ’— the ancient task of making bricks without straw—is still frequently referred to. I was at the Oval late in _ August 1889, when it was arranged to play the match between Surrey and Yorkshire to a finish. I remembar that before it was over the gas had been lighted all round outside the ground. A mist was coming on, and darkness began to set in very quickly ; in fact it was difficult not to imagine that one was not looking on at the finish of a football match. At first, with about thirty re­ quired and virtually the last Surrey pair together, an extension of half an hour was arranged, but at its expiration eight were still wanted, the batsmen having defied all efforts to part them. Before consenting to continue Mr. ‘ Jack’ Shuter consulted the two men—Henderson and Beaumont—and as they preferred to go on in the gathering gloom the match was played out and won by them. Maurice Bead was in reserve, but had been injured, and could only have batted with one hand.” W. A. B e t t e s ' wob . t h .