Cricket 1899

Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.” — Byron. Ho. 5 0 2 . V O L . X V I I I . THTTKSDAY. MAECH 23, 1899 P R IC E 8d. CHATS ON THE CRICKET FIELD. MR . KENNETH M CALP INE . To gentlemen like Mr. M QAlpine Kent owes a very great deal, for they take as it were a section of the county and work to develop its resources as hard as a millionaire works to add another million to his credit. If for this labour of love a little praise is bestowed upon them they feel amply rewarded for all their exertions; if not they simply work on as hard and quietly as before. The section of the county which Mr. MQAlpine has taken under his especial charge is Mote Park and the surrounding neigh­ bourhood. He was born at Leamington on April 11th, 1858, and came to live in Kent in 1866. Educated at Haileybury he was in his house eleven, but when si ill very small went to a tutor in Huntingdonshire, and played a lot of cricket in that county and in Cambridgeshire. In 1876 he went to a tutor in Switzerland, at Yevey. Owning a share in a coffee plantation at Coppa, Mysore district, about 190 miles from Bangalore, he went to India in 1878, and lived in a mud hut without doors or windows all through a monsoon. The result of this was that he contracted severe rheuma­ tism, and would have lost the use of his left arm, had he not corns homo and put him­ self in the hands of Dr. Wharton H ood in 1880, who effected a remarkable cure. In 1880, having given up all idea of returning to India, he studied brewing at Maidstone, and in the same year became secretary and captain of the Mote C.C., joint offices which he has ?bly filled ever since. H e takes great interest in county cricket, and is on the general committee, the managing com ­ mittee, while he is chairman of the ‘ Y oung Players’ committee,” and the Free Foresters committee. H e was one of Lord Hawke’s team in the United States and Canada in 1891 and 1894, but was ill nearly the whole of the latter trip. He takes a great interest in Conservative politics, and is on the Kent County Council. W ith regard to the Mote C.C., Mr. M cAlpine said :—“ Mote Park used to belong to Lord Bomney, but was MR. KENNETH MCALPINE. ( From a Photo by Lafjyette , London.) bought by Sir Marcus Samuel, who very kindly lets us go on playing. The ground is so much on the slope that we always have to pitch the wickets in the same direction, whilo the numerous trees make the light bad. In county matches we have to draw stumps quite by six o ’clock, but we make up for this b y beginning on the second and third days at eleven. Before 1880, the M ote C.C. used to play about a dozen matches at the most, chiefly against local clubs ; nowadays it plays twenty-five or twenty-six against most o f the best-known clubs in the south. I remember an incident which once occurred on the ground when Yorkshire were play­ ing there. Bain had stopped play, and an enthusiastic gentleman who had done himself well announced in loud tones that he was going to fetch Lord Hawke out of the p a v ilio D . He acted u p to what he proposed to do, but was removed from the ground by a couple of policemen. In the evening the same gentle­ man was going up to town b y train, and stated to the passengers in his carriage that he had driven up to the match in a four-in-hand. A quiet parson in a corner asked him in what way he had left i t ! ” “ Don’t you find the double duties of captain and secretary very burdensome ? ” “ Ever since I have been secretary I have had no bother and no difficulties, except that we don’t know where to look for young players. We should do better if the townspeople took greater interest in cricket. It is an extraordinary thing, however, that if a county match is played on one of the grounds away from the town, all Maidstone goes to see it. It may be that business people don’t like to turn up at Mote Park, in case they should be accused of wasting their tim e; if they go away they are likely to escape notice. One of the drawbacks to the success of our county seems to me to be the absolute lack of bona fide village cricket—there are practically no matches between village and village as such. The village clubs gradually began to try to strengthen their teams b y playing men from other districts, and the consequence was that Tom Jones and Dick Smith of the village seldom or never g ot a chance to bow l. This is in my opinion the cbief reastn