Famous Cricketers No 68 - Fred Tate

Leveson-Gowers were at dinner one evening when their dining room windows were shattered by shot gun pellets. It was Fred on the terrace shooting at bats. When taxed with the incident he apologised adding “I must have come at them round the wicket instead of over the wicket and lost my length.” In 1895 while living at 28 Warleigh Road, Preston, Brighton, Mrs Tate gave birth to their first child, a boy christened Maurice William, the first name in honour of the Reverend F.L.Powys-Maurice who had played with Fred at Sheffield Park. When, presumably with his benefit money, (at £1051 18s a county record) Tate became licensee of the Burrell Arms, Hayward’s Heath, he was able to send his son to a private day school, Belvedere. As a publican, Fred Tate does not seem to have made the mistake that ruined so many cricketers’ lives - over indulgence in his own merchandise. Fred Tate the Bowler Throughout his career, or most of it (see below) Tate bowled off-spinners at medium- pace, some sources say slow-medium, with a deceptive yorker, a slower ball held back “as if it had a string attached” and a faster ball that went on with his arm. As far as one can discover, the off break was finger spun although possibly his armoury also included a faster off-cutter. He took a short run and all authorities agree on the ease of his action. With his workload it needed to be. Coming into the game when the fashion on good wickets was for medium-pace bowlers to indulge in off-theory with seven/two or eight/one field placings, Tate seems to have attacked the stumps more than most. Andrew Stoddart is on record as saying that Tate clean bowled more first-class batsmen on perfect wickets than any other medium-pacer. In the light of the nonsense written by Charles Fry in his autobiography, it is worth examining what the same author says about Tate in his Book of Cricket , (George Newnes 1901). “the Sussex eleven for many years now has included one of the two or three best medium-pace bowlers in England. Had Fred Tate been a Middlesex or Lancashire bowler he would have won as great a fame on paper and in figures as he has in the minds of those who really understand cricket.” Rightly stressing the problems of bowling on the bland Hove wicket Fry adds, in direct contradiction of his words in Life Worth Living , “it is certain that on a sticky or crumbled pitch, Tate can bowl any side out for a small score.” Henry Leveson-Gower thought Tate one of the most accurate bowlers he had ever faced - “almost an Attewell or J.T.Hearne” - while according to Sir Home Gordon, Ranjitsinhji and Percy Perrin, two highly experienced cricketers well placed to express a valid opinion, considered father Fred a better bowler than son Maurice. More and more players were learning how to swing the ball - Hirst, Rawlin of Middlesex, Walter Wright of Kent, the amateur W.E.W.Collins, the Australian Monty Noble, the Philadelphian Bart King for example - but Tate was not apparently one of them. This presumably meant that, unlike his son, Tate did not derive much benefit from the famous Hove ‘sea fret’. In the Book of Cricket there is an excellent photograph of Tate rubbing the ball on the turf to take the shine off. Tate, a trifle corpulent with carefully trimmed and waxed moustache, looks pleased with himself. What his fast bowling partner Cyril Bland made of the proceedings is unrecorded. Although usually described as medium-pace there is some doubt about Tate’s speed at some stages of his career. While he is labelled medium in the 1889 Red Lillywhite, by 1892 he is “fast round arm”. He is also described as a fast bowler in Charles Alcock’s part work Famous Cricketers & Cricket Grounds published in 1895. The 1902 Wisden says he “lacks some of the pace he at one time possessed but he has greatly increased his command over the ball”. 6