Cricket 1906

82 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. A pril 26, 1906. take their place. This gave us a pretty good fillip and some of us got on fairly well, eventually gaining places in the House X I. and School X X II. and X L , though pera ,nally I never got higher than the House team. Our greatest pleasure in life was looking on at foreign matches, as we used to call them, i.e., School X I. matches v. Anomalies, Free Foresters, Knickerbockers, M. C. C. Gentlemen, Eugby, etc.” “ I cannot help thinking that in the early sixties Eugby School had as good teams as have ever been turned out by any Public School,” continued Mr. Wil­ son. “ I speak from memory, but some sort of an X I. as this :—F. H. Bowden- Smith, E. Rutter (these two, one fast right, the other slow left, bowled un­ changed in all foreign matches in 1860), M. T. Martin, F. Lee, S. Linton, F. E. Evans, C. Booth, B. B. Cooper, E. P. Ash, C. Marshall, and J. S. E. Hood, would hold their own with most, thanks mainly to Alfred Diver—he and H. H. Stephen­ son were the two finest school coaches I ever saw or heard of. I think the above Eugby X I. could have rivalled any of H. H. S.’ s Uppingham sides, though possibly no individual was quite the accomplished batsman A. P. Lucas became some years after the period I mentioned; and C. E. Green was hard to beat. Eugby, under Diver, turned out many magnificent cricketers in the 60’s and 70’s, W. Yardley, B. Pauncefote, G. F. Vtrnon, Kenney-Herbert, etc. K j ’Varsity match then was ever without one or two Eugbeians on each side ; but ‘ Tempora mutantur.’ ” The year 1862 saw the birth of a club initiated by Mr. A . G. Guillemard and Mr. Wilson in Arnold’s House. “ It arose in this wise,” he said. “ The Swells of the School X I. and X X II. started an 0 . E. club, yclept “ The Pantaloons ” ; it was a sine quA non that all members should have been or should be in the X I. or X X II. We youngsters, who might never attain such honour, thought it a foul shame that such a restriction should be placed, debarring those who might develop later from membership. So we two, A. G. G. and A. W., hatched some eggs; these developed larvae; the chrysalides arrived in due time, and finally a beautiful crop of ‘ Butteiflies,’ which came to stay. To parody Thackeray, ‘ Pantaloons are dead and buried. “ Butteiflies” existalway.’ In two years Pantaloon was knocked on the head by beauteous Columbine, and, at his decease, an unhappy member adopted the dead mummer’s colours for the new county—Derbyshire. The ‘ Butterflies ’ numbers increased. The two founders held informal elections on this wise. Some one would knock at our study door and say, ‘ I say, you fellows, can I be a Batter- fly ? ’ At which we used to exclaim, ‘ My dear fellow, you are one.’ An instant creation ! We played matches and soon found we had to enlarge the club. Eton, Harrow, Westminster, Winchester and Charterhouse wei e added to Eugby, and in two years we had 200 members, with A. W . as captain and A. G. G. as hon. sec.” “ We used to play very festive matches,” said Mr. Wilson, “ with varying success. We had a curious experience once. We played dear old David Buchanan’s Eugby Club one Saturday, young A. N. Hornby, as he was then, going in first and play­ ing David for the first time. The Lanca­ shire boss made some 90 runs. David came to me and said, ‘ Wilson, who is this magnificent batsman ? He has played the finest innings against me I have ever seen ! ’ On the Monday and Tuesday we played the School. They went in ; stayed in ; and made 528 by 6.30; a record at the time. We were pretty well beat. We had each run some 25 miles in pursuit of the ball, and the sensible ones retired to ‘ The Shoes’ for supper and pipes. Not bo ‘ Monkey ’ Hornby and Charlie Smith. The Town Sports were on that evening, and by 8.30 they had swept the board. They fairly equally divided the two miles, one mile, half mile, quarter mile, hurdle race, the two jumps, and the cricket ball, and gracefully handed each prize to him who ran second. A good day’s work. The year following we were again there. My House Master, the aforesaid ‘ Plug,’ met me with the remark, ‘ We no longer associate the Butterflies with cricket, Wilson.’ I said, ‘ All right, sir, we shall see.’ We did. Charlie Green and Eoquette bowled the school out for 28 this time, and we won very easily.” “ One of the most interesting ‘ Butter­ fly ’ matches we ever played was at Paris v. the Paris Club in the Bois de Boulogne. Our hosts were most kind and hospitable, and we won by eight wickets, I think. They were quite cheery over this second Waterloo, and entertained us sumptu­ ously—Charlie Alcock, Bernard Paunce­ fote (only a boy of 16), F. M. Holland, J. D. Alexander, and others. What a time we had ! We were not allowed to say ‘ Good-night.’ Several gendarmes said, ‘ II est d6fendu ’ ; but we did, and had a ‘ scrap ’ with them, and some of us went to prison. That was very unpleas­ ant.” “ What of your Oxford days ? ” “ At Oxford cricket was delightful; practice on the Christ Church ground, and matches there and at Bullingdon were the perfection of enjoyment. The only thing about the Bullingdon Club was that, though it was supposed to be primarily a cricket club, its efficient players were few, especially when its cracks were playing for the ’Varsity. I remember being once told I was to boss the team against I Zingari. All our good men were playing away, and I had to utilize five who had never played cricket before. I Zmgaii won the toss. Charley Marsham went in to take first ball. Some one bowled a long hop w ile of the off stump, Charley Marsham struck boldly out, and the ball went hardish in the direction of cover to one of the new players, who put out a large left hand. The ball stuck. Charley’s face was a treat. We drew. The lunch was excellent; the dinner in the barn divine; the music superb. I remember one of the band used to sing a great song of the ' time, with the refrain ‘ Not a bit like Jeremiah!’ I can’ t quite remember what it was that did not resemble that Greater Prophet.” “ I think the finest Oxford team I ever saw (and where could a finer be found anywhere?) was that of poor Mike Mitchell’s last year,” said Mr. Wilson. “ Mitchell was one of the few captains who could always pick the best team at his disposal; he was a glorious judge of a man’s capacity : E. A. H. Mitchell, S. C. Voules, F. E. Evans, E. D Walker, A. S. Teape, W. F. Maitland, E. W. Tritton, C.E. Boyle, E. L. Fellowes, F. W. Wright and T. Case. I think everyone of the above played, or was asked to play for Gentlemen v. Players. A record.” “ And after your Oxford days ? ” “ I then married and settled in Mel­ bourne, a Derbyshire village, and had business in Derby and soon a little voice in Derbyshire cricket. Our village games were amusing, original and delight­ ful. We had one excellent bat, a saddler with a wooden leg. In the field he had to go short slip, where he could usually nip them up if they came straight, but he tumbled down if they did not, and would require the stumper and several others to pick him up. We had glorious matches with colliers from Coalville way—such fine, strong, hard-working players; I remember oneXI. of them containing nine left-handed batsmen. Once, one of them hit a half-volley back straight at my brother-in-law, who was bowling. The ball caught him bang on the curve of the forehead, knocking him down flop ; it then went 30 yards straight up in the air. We, all but one, ran to him, think- iog he was killed, but this one — my faithful mid-off—had his eye on the ball and caught it, and the dark man had to go. I am glad to say the hard-headed member of the family soon recovered, but it was ‘ a hard knock ’ as the private secretary said. Mid-off was heard to remark, ‘ I didn’t think of ’im ; I kept my heye on the ball.” Derbyshire cricket was at that time in a bad way. Help was needed and Mr. Wilson was put on the committee about 32 years ago. The team was a curious one,” he said, “ well summed up by Henry Perkins, who once said to me, ‘ Wilson, Derbyshire comes up here with 10 bowlers and a wicket-keeper ! ’ It was to a certain extent true. Oar weakness was ever in the defence, until we had a fine sextet of batsmen in S. H. Evershed, L. G. Wright, Bagshaw, Chatterton, Davidson, and Storer, all going together and at their best. Then things went fairly for us, though financial troubles were always with us. One of our well-known Derby­ shire cricketers from the very start in 1872 was an excellent fellow, a tailor, one Sam Eichardson, who was assistant sec., good bat, wicket-keeper and captain; he migrated to Madrid, where he is now, as Court Tailor, manipulating the double­ milled frock coat, white waistcoat and mauve pantaloons for H.M. King Alphonso for the approaching auspicious occasion.” With regard to the financial position