Cricket 1904

CRICKET, A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME, APRIL 14, 1904] . +=■ M i s l i i l l ■ / / / V § <Ot> 1 \ ^ i n s r j e j c — ^ 0 $ = = ^ ---- ■ j M c ' “ Together joined in Cricket’ s manly toil.”— Byron. * 0 . 65 3. VOL. x x i x i . THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1904. f b i c e aa. SOME REM IN ISCENCES OP MR. W . J. FORD . Thousands of cricketers who never saw Mr. Ford in the field must have been grieved when they read in the Easter Monday papers the announcement of his death. F or of late j ears he had written much about cricket in magazines and newspapers, and, indeed, there is hardly a newspaper, from the Times to the hum­ blest of county gazettes, in which his signature has not appeared under articles con­ nected with the game. He seldom went very deeply into the subject, and his writings generally appealed rather to the average cricketer than to the expert, although he knew as much about the theory of the game as most people. He was also widely known as the author of several books, of which the most important were ‘ The Middlesex County Cricket Club, 1864-1899 ” and the “ H istory of the C am b rid g e U n iv e r s it y Cricket Club.” He was an authority on many other subjects besides cricket. He contributed to the Badmin­ ton volume on billiards, and I seem to remember seeing a book of his on Greek gram ­ mar. Be this as it may, he often m ight have been seen in the British Museum in company with another well- known writer on cricket sub­ jects, hunting up books dealing with Greek plays and other matter far re­ moved from the game of cricket. 'Whether any of his books will become classic may perhaps be doubted, but who of modem writers on cricket has written a book which will be remembered after twenty years ? But it is as a cricketer and not as a writer that Mr. Ford must here be considered. When one comes to think over the details of his career as a cricketer, one is surprised to find how seldom he played in first-class matches. This is not because he was not thought good enough to play in them, but because his scholastic duties sadly interfered with his opportunities of getting away. A t the same time he made his mark in good cricket, chiefly as a big hitter, as may be seen from the notes b y Mr. Payne ou another page. I remember reading an MR. W. J. POBD. (Photo by Dickinson, New Bond Street , London,) article of Mr. Ford’s on “ B ig H itters,” and I could not help thinking that he himself could hit at least as hard as any of the famous men whose doings he was chronicling. The first time that I saw him bat was in a match at Ardingly, in which he was playing against the School for an Eastbourne team. We had made enough runs on a very difficult wicket to give us reasonable hopes of winning the match pretty easily, but when our oppo­ nents went in we could do nothing with Mr. Ford, although we could keep the other batsmen quiet enough. The ground was small, and he seemed to lift the ball out of it whenever he pleased. W . Blackman, who played so finely in after years for Sussex until his premature death, was bow ling as fast and as well as he ever bowled in his life, but the faster he bowled the harder Mr. Ford seemed to hit him. The situation became desperate. Mr. Ford was rapidly ap­ proaching his hundred, de­ spite the difficulties of the wicket, and our hopes of winning became smaller and smaller, for even if by good luck we could get rid of the big hitter there were several more men to be disposed of. But we were not quite at the end o f our resources. In George Brann, now so well known for his splendid per­ formances for Sussex, we had a bow ler of a most un­ hallowed ty p e; a type so low that we used to tell him he was a disgrace to the team, and we only put him on when we were iu the very tightest o f comers. H e bowled very fast underhand, the ball hopping five or six times before reaching the wicket. In our extremity we tried Brann, who was an entire stranger to Ford— as we all knew. The ball hopped as usual, and at the last hop broke in deceitfully from the leg, and Ford, who was completely taken by surprise, was bowled neck and crop. We thought that he would be furious, but in his genial way he laughed heartily, and not less heartily when we took Brann off at the end of the over. The story would per­ haps have a better moral if I could add that, as we deserved, we were beaten in the end, but as a matter of fact, we dis­ missed the last man when but a single run was required to win, after one of the