Cricket 1909

CRICKET : A W EEKLY RECORD OF T H E GAME. OCTOBER 28, 1909. “ Together joined in CricKet’s manly toil.”— Byron. No. 8 2 7 . VOL. xxvm. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1909. o n e p enn y . CHATS ON THE CRICKET FIELD. M b . G. N. DUCK. It is probable that to the majority of present-day cricketers Mr. Duck w ill be unknown even by name, seeing that he w ill shortly enter upon his eightieth year, and that over thirty seasons have passed since he played in a match of note. Of him it may truly be said that if he had chosen to devote all bis time and ener­ gies to the game he would have made a name for himself, for, notwithstanding that he gave up cricket for fourteen of the best years of his life— from twenty-two to thirty- six—and that he met with an accident which would have unnerved for years afterwards ninety-nine men out of every hundred, he was able, upon tak­ ing his place in the field again, to make his mark in matches wherein players of the stamp of C. I. Thorn­ ton, Tom Emmett, the Walkers, George Anderson, J. W. Dale and others took part. He was in his thirty- seventh year when, proposed by his old friend, Squire New­ comen, he was elect­ ed a member of the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Club, with which he was destined to be associated in many enjoyable m a tch e s. Froma Painting ] Later he was asked by Lord Londesborough (through Roger Iddi- son) to join the Yorkshire United C.C., and, doing so, appeared with ere Jit to himself and advantage to the side in several of the games arranged by that short-lived organisa­ tion. In subsequent years he played a good deal of cricket in Scotland, and that his devo­ tion to the game has not become less keen dur­ ing the passing of the years is evident from the fact that he is a Vice-President of the Beddington C.G. and that it is seldom indeed that he misses a match played by the Club on its home ground. The description of Dr. E. M. Grace furnished by Mr. Haygarth would apply, even at the present time, with as much accuracy to the subject of these remarks, who is “ Overflowing with cricket MR. GEORGE NIXON DUCK. at every pore, fu ll of lusty life, cheerily gay, with energy inexhaustible.” It should, how ever, be added that Mr. Duck is of a very retiring disposition, and that it was with no little difficulty that he was induced to speak of his experiences. Concerning his early cricket Mr. Duck says :— “ I was born at Ridgeway House— not ‘ Rudgeway’ House, as given by Mr. Methven Brownlee in his B iography o f W . G . G race — two miles from Bristol on tbe Man- gotsfield Road, on February 9th, 1831. My first bat was given to me soon after the death of my father, when I was about eleven years old, by a friend of my elder brother. It was one of the old curved type, without a spring in the handle, and perhaps it was because of the awful stings it gave my hands that I left it behind when we left the neigh­ bourhood. A la s ! If I could but have known how valuable it would have been to-day, I should have treasured it very carefully, as it would have been al­ most worth its weight in gold. The field in which I first handled it was one in which Dr. W . G. Grace pro­ bably practised when he was at school at R id g e w a y H o u se , which had been sold by my mother after my father’s death in 1842, and which eventually passed into the hands of Mr. Malpas who carried on his school there. When 19, I joined the Westbury- on-Trym Cricket Club and played several matches for them, and about that time would frequently walk over from Bristol, where we then lived, to Down- end in order to prac­ tise under the watchful eye of Dr. Henry M ills Grace and Alfred Po­ cock, father and uncle respectively of W. G.,” [ofthe year 181*8. jn liistoric orchard, with Henry aud Alfred, “ W .G .’s” elder brothers, and assisted in the fieldiDg department by Noble, the retriever. Here was laid the foundation of what little really good cricket form and ability I ever possessed. Dr. Grace soon asked me to play for him, aud accordingly I joined the Mangotsfield C C., which developed into the West Gloucestershire C.C., and played for the old Doctor fifty-eight years ago. I think