Cricket 1913

May 24, 1913. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 235 Correspondence. THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT. T o t h e E d it o r o f “ C r ic k e t .” S ir , — In your issue last week appears an article under the above heading which is both interesting and well-written, but which, to say the long and short of it, seems to leave something to be desired on the score of accuracy. According to the circular which he fitted in for Scores and Biographies , Mr. A. W. Ridley stood exactly 6ft. high. Even had he reached the 6ft. 4m. credited to him by your contributor he would still have been far from being the tallest English cricketer, as will presently appear. Tyler of Somerset was certainly not 6ft. 2in., nor anything like it. Lillywhite records his height as being just 6ft., but even this seems, from a very clear recollection of Tyler, to flatter him somewhat. It is true that John TunniclifTe’s height has been stated as 6ft. 2in., but I believe 6ft. 3m. was the exact height in his case as in that of William Gunn. The tallest English cricketer of any note was Mr. A. W. B. Sclater, who represented Sussex in 1879 and 1880. He stood 6ft. 6in. in his stockinge I feet. Mr. H. R.'^Kingscote, a redoubtable cricketer in the days of old, who was President of the M.C.C. in 1827, stood 6ft. 6in. Present-day cricketers of exactly the same height are Mr. Percy H. Ford (Gloucestershire), Mr. J. H. Phillips (Warwickshire), and Mr. Percy G. East, who has played for Essex Second Eleven. The late Mr. W. Barclay Delacombe, of Derbyshire, was 6ft. 5m. Mr. G. F. Hornby when he played in the Winchester Eleven in 1880 stood 6ft. 5m. Mr. J. H. Sin­ clair, whose premature decease we all deplore, stood 6ft. 4m. The present Earl of Darnley, better known to cricketers as the Hon. Ivo Bligh is 6ft. 3m., which was also the height of Mr. W. J. Ford of Middlesex. William Foulke who played for Derby­ shire in 1900 was about the same height. Mr. S. S. Pawling of Middlesex stood 6ft. 2in. The tallest of all cricketers was prob­ ably Robert Hilton, for some seasons a member of the ground- staff at Hove, who died in 1905. He himself stated his height to be no less than 6ft. 9m. but as he generally stooped it was “ nor­ mally ” 6ft. 7m. The “ kind and manly ” Alfred Mynn was 6ft. 1in. in height and his playing weight was between 18 and 20 stones so that he was the biggest, though by no means the tallest, of all famous cricketers. Australian cricketers, G. J. Bonnor’s I height has been variously stated to have been 6ft. 5m. and 6ft. 6in ; | and among latter-day players C. J. Eady, Hugh Trumble, and Warwick Armstrong, all, I believe, stood at least 6ft. 2in. The last time I had the pleasure of seeing Armstrong on an English ground, he had developed the proportions of a small elephant, and if he continues in his own way to fulfil the scriptural injunc­ tion to “ increase and multiply ” no doubt in time he will become a second Daniel Lambert. The honour of being the smallest cricketer of note is generally regarded as being shared by “ Tiny ” Wells, of Sussex and Middle­ sex, and T >W. Gunn of Surrey, who each stood 5ft. 2Jin They are closely followed by two Yorkshiremen, George Thorpe and Charles Webster, at 5ft. 3m. Francis Moore of Notts was 5ft. 3^in., and “ Boy ” Bagguley of the same county was 5ft. 4m. William Haywood of Middlesex, J. J. Tuck and W. C. Roberts of Hants were also 5ft. 4m. That famous Yorkshire batsman, Andrew Greenwood, stood 5ft. 4Jin., which is also the height of W. G. Quaife of Warwickshire. At 5ft. 5m. stand Emanuel Scott of Yorkshire, S. Hind, jun. of Notts, and “ F a t" Bacon, the genial Hampshire Secretary. At 5ft. 5^in. appears a whole battalion, of whom I will only mention the Rev. W. Wingfield (whose obituary appears on another page), Mr. C. S. Gordon of Gloucestershire, Joe Westell, of Herts, and the Yorkshire cricketers H. Sampson, H. Rudston, C. H. Grimshaw (who is now qualified for Worcestershire, by the way, and ought to prove a valuable asset to the team) and Edgar Oldroyd. The smallest Australian cricketer of- note was Allec Bannerman, who stood 5^t. 5in. ; but Sydney Gregory must be only very slightly taller. According to the biography of Walter Bullough, who once or twice represented South Australia, which appears in Scores and Biographies , vol. xiv., his height was but 5ft. £in. If this state­ ment can be verified, his claim is clearly established as the smallest first-class cricketer who has yet appeared, not only in that land of bushmen and er—Bushrangers, but in the world. But one is inclined to suspect a printer’s error. Excepting Bonnor, not one of the above-mentioned cricketers’ names appears in last week’s list. Yours truly, May 18, 1913. A. C. D. D e a r S ir , — I have read with much interest the criticisms of Mr. W. A. Bettesworth and “ H. P. T.” on my views concerning the County Championship. With the remarks of the latter 1 am not disposed to cavil, for my knowledge of the workings of county cricket is not deep enough to make my views either one way or the other worthy of much attention, and it would certainly be idle for me to make a definite and offhand assertion that the championship could not be carried out effectively, and in the right spirit on the lines suggested by him. When I wrote my article I had seen the scheme he puts forward and my view of a divisional competition was that the number of counties would be increased to about 26 (13 in each division, each county playing 24 matches) thus causing a super-abundance of county cricket with the consequent inevitable over—professionalization and commerciali’ ation. I am afraid Mr. W. A. Bettesworth rather missed my point. He seems to think that I desired to make an attack on the Birmingham crowd in particular ; but this was by no means my intention, my remarks applying to crowds in general. I merely took the Birmingham crowd as an instance, and I have no animosity towards it any more than towards other crowds. There is no doubt that public interest is a good thing for county 1cricket. Applause is a strong incentive to earnest effort, and one can well wish that the multitude may never lose their interest in the game. The point, however, which I desire to bring out is that crowds seem to be composed to a less extent than one could wish of those who are really cricketers at heart, and to a greater extent than one could wish of those who go to the ground principally in .the hope of seeing something sensational happen. It is the danger of pandering to a desire for sensationalism and to the facilitation of newspaper cricket, thus allowing the followers of cricket unduly to influence the doings of the actual players and the spirit of the play, that I wish to emphasise. Mr. G. L. Jessop within the last few days has written an article on this subject, which is worth quoting as he, who is so popular with all crowds, and has had such wide experience of them, is surely in a position to speak authoritatively and in an unbiassed manner. He says:— It is in the main to the public that counties look for their chief source of income. I So that although it may once have been fashionable to ignore their presence as a necessity to the existence of the game, that air of superiority can no longer be assumed. Still although one is forced to acknowledge the importance of “ gate,” yet the minds of the crowd should be disabused of the idea that theirs is the right to control the game. The presence of the public upon all occasions when fashionable games are played by well-known exponents has become such a feature of English athletics that the true relation between players and spectators is sometimes in danger of being overlooked. Thousands seem to think that a player is playing solely for their pleasure, and accordingly must obey their dictation. The payment of sixpence at the gate does not entitle a spectator to jeer at a batsman playing steadily when in their opinion he ought to be hitting. There are limits beyond which the comments of onlookers ought not to go. Moments when the crowd are carried away with enthusiasm are very infrequent at cricket matches, so that the spectator cannot plead the same excuse— if even excuse be permitted— as the football spectator. It.is unusual for an ordinary League football match not to be brimful of incidents capable of provocation to the mildest mannered of men. In the heat of the moment men are not saints— and never will be. One may be inclined to overlook a temporary aberration in such circumstances. Where one can find no excuse is on the occasions of riotous outbursts which -so frequently occur in the cricket field when play has been delayed owing to rain. People are too often apt to overlook the fact that the umpires are the sole judges of fair and unfair play, and as such have to be certain that neither side will be penalised by too early a resumption. One of the most brilliant of left-handed batsmen, H. T. Hewett, the old Somerset captain, left the game as a protest to the unmerited abuse heaped upon his head at Scarborough when he refused to be dictated to by a noisy section of the crowd. And if the truth were told he is not the only amateur who has preferred to disport himself in comparative privacy in unimportant matches. It must be remembered that all cricketers are not the servants of the public. The following further extract from the same article may be of interest to Mr. Bettesworth and may show him that, although there are always plenty of real sportsmen in the Birmingham crowd, the view I expressed regarding the attitude of a large section of it is shared by at least one other person and that one a man whose opinion cannot be brushed lightly aside as perhaps mine can be. Since the advent of Frank Foster with his brilliant all-round cricket to thrill them, the Birmingham crowd lack nothing in enthusiasm. Born in an atmosphere of football wherein the bad weather element is of no account they are perhaps more prone to resent those tedious but unavoidable delays consequent after heavy showers. The short, sharp bursts of ninety minutes League matches has bred in them a desire to partake of their sport in tabloid form rather than in concentrated essence. To them irrespective of its usefulness a fifty minutes’ riotous innings from a Foster or Charlesworth will weigh more than one hundred and fifty of sedate cricket from a Quaife or Kinneir. Yours truly, W. H.