Cricket 1897

“ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.” — Byron. no. 4 6 6 . v o l . X T i. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1897. p r i c e aa. CHATS ON THE CRICKET FIELD. M r . WILLIAM CARLESS. For the last eleven years the Hastings Week has been one of the features of the cricket season, and during that period Mr. Carless has been its highly popular honorary secretary. It is mainly due to his exertions and tact that the Week has gained such a hold on the cricket public and cricketers, that without it the season would be sadly in­ complete. Mr. CarLss has had previous experience in the management- of cricket matches, for in 1874 and 1875 he was honorary secretary of the Herefordshire County C.C., besides playing regu­ larly in the eleven, and from the time that he went to Hastings in 1877 he has been intimately connected with local cricket. As a cricketer, he played for his college, St. John’s, while he was at Cam­ bridge, but practically gave up cricket to row in the college eight, which was at that time at the head of the river. He has also rowed for Kingston R C. at Henley in the Grand Challenge and the Stewards. At Hereford he played a lot of Rugby foot­ ball, and was also in the old Ravenscourt Park team in London at the time when Mr. G F. Yernon was one of its prominent members. In former days the county could not be persuaded to play any matches out of Brighton, and many promi­ nent inhabitants of Hastings began to thiuk that it was time to make some sort of a move to attract first-class cricketers to the town. “ At last in 1887,” said Mr. Carless, “ a strong local committee was formed, of which many of the members still continue to serve year after year. Captain Greatrex acted as joint honorary secretary with me for the first year, but I have acted alone since. We did not begin the Week with two first-class matches, but Tom Emmett got together a North team, while the South included W. W. Read, Abel, Key and Lohmann. In ad­ dition to this match there were a couple of two-day matches, Gentlemen of Surrey v. Gentlemen of Sussex, and Gentlemen of Sussex v. Players of Sussex. To provide against possible loss I suggested that we should form a guarantee fund,[and the proposal was agreed to with enthusiasm. The fund has been kept up ever since.” “ Have the guarantors ever been called upon to pay ? ” “ Never! We have never had a suffi­ cient loss to make it necessary to call upon them, and at the present we have a balance of about £700 in hand. The first Week resulted in a loss of about £12, but since then the only unfavour­ able Week was in 1896, when owing to perfectly shocking weather we had a loss of £80. Indeed, there was hardly a day from the middle of August until the end of November when it was not more or less wet.” “ You have been fortunate in always getting together good teams.” “ The success of the week is, in my opinion, chiefly due to the way in which the most famous cricketers have sup­ ported us. W.G., Stoddart, Gunn and Abel (who have I believe playrdin every match), Lohmann, W. W. Read, and many others have always done their best for us, and have always been willing to play. The result has been that the matches have never fallen below the highest level. The sole aim of the committee has been to give the public the best possible cricket aval- able; in fact, this, and the willingness of the best ama­ teurs and professionals to help us, has been the secret of the success of the week. It has occasionally been objected that Sussex men have not played in large numbers in the matches, but the teams are chosen absolutely on the form shown by the players, and as arrangements have to be made during June it some­ times happens that a player comes into notice at the end of the season, when it is too late for us to alter our pro­ gramme. This, of course, cannot possibly be avoided ; it is out of the question to leave things to the last moment. I need hardly say that the work entails a lot of correspon­ dence; in fact, one has to write letters from the beginning of December until long after the season is over.” ‘ ‘ Have the matches since the first year always been North v. South and Gentle­ men v. Players ? ” “ Except when the Australians have been.here, and in 1895 when we played Stoddart’s team v. Rest of England. I UK WILLIAM CARLRSS. (From a Photo by J. II. Blomfield, 44, Robertson Street , Hastings.)