Cricket 1900

423 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. S e p t . 20, 1900. THE COST OF THE COUNTY CRICKET SEASON. The following article appeared in the Captain of September. It is written by Harold Macfarlane and is illustrated by a series of explanatory diagrams, etc., which are worth preserving as interesting records. “ Perhaps the most noteworthy charac­ teristic of county cricket is the fact that it surpasses in cheapness any other method of providing relaxation yet de­ vised. Even the football enthusiast who purchases healthy excitement at low rates has to pay for his amusement at the cist of 4d. an hour, whilst the frequenter of Lord’s, Edgbaston, Trent Bridge, and other county cricket grounds, can enjoy six hours or more of sport at an outlay in many cases of less than Id. an hour. Taking one year with another, the English public, in the course of a season, collectively enjoy 730 years of amuse­ ment (this is premising that each indi­ vidual who attends only watches the play during three hours) at a cost so small that if we were to take the sum in sovereigns and piled them up in 77 columns, which could be conveniently arranged on one page of the magazine, each of these columns would be but Jin. over 4ft. in height; when we divide this quantity of the precious metal ov<sr fifteen first-class counties it is at once apparent that the expenditure of each club upon the fight for the county championship is utterly incommensurate with the enormous amount of pleasure the nation at large derives from that tournament of cricket giants. As a matter of fact, although the average sum spent by each county club is about £4,000 per annum, the actual expenditure varies according to the situation, etc., of the club between two solid gold regula­ tion-sized stumps, plm one ditto ditto bail (£2,000), and three fall-sized hall­ marked cricket bats, each worth more than £3,000, and each weighing over Colbs., which would in comparison make the implement wielded, when he is at the wicket, by Carpenter, the Essex pro­ fessional, who is notorious for his heavy bats, appear but a feather weight. Although the sum spent on county cricket by the public is really so small that, if taken in sixpences, the coins would scarcely, if touching one another, form a ribbon joining the Lancashire County Ground at Old Trafford, with the Headingly Ground, Leeds, the said ribbon being but 34J miles lo n g ; still, when we divide half the expenditure by the number of wickets falling during the season, and the other half by the number of runs scored in the course of 102 days’ play, it is somewhat surprising to find that the cost per wicket works out at £6 10s. 1J1.; whilst each run scored means an expendi­ ture of 4s. 10Jd. In the third diagram we see how the cost per wicket and per run fluctuates in the case of several counties; thus when Lockwood performs the “ hat trick,” the feat is represented by an expenditure on the part of Surrey of close upon £39; but when Rhodes takes a wicket, the Yorkshire outlay is but £6 9i. 91.; moreover, Hampshire captures wickets at £5 3?. lOd. each, and Middlesex, per Trott and Hearne, garners in a rich harvest at £4 a wicket. Runs, it will be noted, are comparatively cheap; when Abel, for instance, steers one of Bradley’s “ expresses” through the slips to the boundary, the feat repre­ sents an outlay of but £1 16s. 61. on the part of the Surrey executive. J. T. Brown’s “ fifties ” Yorkshire finds cheap at £12 2s. 81. apiece, whilst, thanks to M ijor Poore and Captain Wynyard, Hampshire scores sixes with impunity at the cost of £L per hit. Although, if taken in sovereigns, the £72,500 which represents the income of our fifteen first-class county clubs from all sources, would but form a golden ribbon stretching in a straight line, either from the centre of Kennington Oval to the Elephant and Castle Station, or to Vincent Square (the cricket ground of Westminster School), or from the main entrance to Lord’s to Paddington (G.W.R.) Station, or from Trafalgar Square to Ludgate Circus, it would, if converted into humble pence, give us a much finer run for our money. As a matter of fact, the Cricket Penny is suffi­ ciently large to form a ribbon of bronze, extending from Kennington Oval to the county ground at Taunton; from thence to the Trent Bridge Ground at Notting­ ham, and, finally, on to the Old Trafford Ground at Manchester—a total distance of 343 miles. In the course of last season the Lanca­ shire executive spent something like £9,344, and attracted 206,742 paying spectators to their ground. We should, therefore, expect that in the course of the tournament to decide the county cham­ pionship, that some 1,300,000 would pay their sixpences to witness the same, and the total receipts from the gate would appear to verify the supposition. If we further add 300,000 members and their friends to the total of spectators, we arrive at an aggregate of 1,600,000 visitors to our principal cricket grounds ; and this number, if marshalled four abreast with one yard of space between each rank would extend from the Mansion House along the Great North Road almost to Northallerton—a distance of 227J miles, and would comprise a most notable and enthusiastic army. This total of spectators, if spread over the 150 matches that last year comprised the tournament for the championship, would give an average of about 10,700 onlookers to each match, which many counties would be more than satisfied with, in view of the fact that they most frequently have smaller gates; in the Hants v. Yorkshire match at Southampton, last year, for instance, the receipts, representing 2,380 spectators, amounted to £59 9s. 8d., whilst the expenditure was £60 18s. 9d., or a small loss instead of the substantial gain that might confidently be expected from such an interesting fixture. The average receipts par match, from all sources, amount to about £480; the gate and stand receipts from the Yorkshire v. Surrey match at Leeds, however, totalled about £837. If we diviled the spectators into as many compinies as there were days of county cricket last year, we should find that each company (in a military sense the “ company” would comprise a “ division ” and a half) would contain 15,685 members, each of whom would be entertained for six hours, if he or she desired to spend that time watching the various matches, at an outlay of £580; which sum, if taken in sovereigns, and the greiter part of these were melted down, would provide sufficient metal to make a solid gold cricket ball of regula­ tion sizs, plus a column of sovereigns 5 inches high. The credit side of the balance sheet of our counties comprises many items, but one of the most interesting is that appear­ ing as “ Receipts from Card Business.” That the profit on the indispensible cricket card, which is retailed at one penny, is considerable, is obvious ; but it is not generally known that, taking the average of the whole season, the actual cost of the card is but one-third of a penny. In the course of a season the receipts from the “ Card Business ” throughout the country amount to about £2,400, and the 576,000 cards, which this sum represents, would, if placed end to end, extend practically from Birmingham to Bristol, a distance of 75 miles. The sixth diagram, which represents the cheque for the total sum paid by John Ball for his season’s entertainment, is divided into three unequal parts, but in proportion to the sums received from subscriptions, gate and stand receipts, and all other sources respectively. It will be observed that theseconditem mentioned is by far the most important; indeed, the gate and stand receipts, broadly speaking, represent eleven-eighteenths of the tota l; the sum paid by refreshment caterers, the card business, and other miscellaneous items, rather less than three thirty-sixths ; and the subscriptions rather more than eleven thirty-sixths. In the course of a season over 2,000 papers in the United Kingdom daily chronicle, at varying lengths, the current history of the county championship. If we say that each of the 2,000 papers gives two columns per day to this subject, which must be well within the mark, at the end of seventeen weeks there will have been printed in our daily Press a column on county cricket not less than 140 miles long, and equal to the distance between London and Shrewsbury, London and Sheffield, or London and Great Grimsby—no wonder that foreigners are impressed with the importance we place upon the result of the cricket champion­ ship ! an importance, thanks to the sport­ ing instinct of the British public, quite incommensurate with the sum we expend upon the same. The author of this article desires to take the present opportunity of acknow­ ledging the kindness of the Lancashire, Yorkshire, Hampshire, and other county secretaries, who courteously supplied him with the reports, balance sheets, etc., upon which the article is bleed.”