Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

7 Introduction; It’s runs that count do trust that, as I have found, there may be some ancient readers who may find pleasure of a reminiscent kind in these pages. Looking back, I am acutely aware that the reading intertwined with the playing and the watching in an incremental fashion, although it is difficult to assess what weighting to put on either side. It leads me to believe that the academic interest of a study of schoolboy tales lies in the interplay of a constant diet of stories replete with sporting subplots, especially relating to cricket, and society at large, particularly in the actual development of schools themselves, inclusive of cricket as a mainline sport. The argument presented here, then, is that the often unconscious collusion between the two is compelling. It will be urged that the place of cricket in the public psyche, child and adult, in general, together with the place of cricket in educational circles in particular, was heavily influenced by this penetration of school-age literature, with cricket often the dominant sporting element. It will be further asserted that, at a critical juncture in educational history, the year-on- year effect of school-associated literature was an essential factor in the mind-set of government and governed when the decisive step was taken in 1902 to establish a national secondary school system. The question is: without a hundred years of such cultural pressure, would the brand of secondary schooling that emerged have been as it was and is, and would cricket have won such an advantageous place in that outcome? In the tradition of the best schoolboy yarns, there will be no spoiler or revelations as to how the plot will unfold. The perimeter wall at Lord’s famously boasts the motto ‘play up, play up and play the game.’ It is fascinating that MCC should choose for its slogan a much-used phrase taken from the story of a schoolboy playing cricket and although, as every schoolboy knows, the line is taken from poetry rather than prose, it is a poem that encapsulates, as significant verse does, a compelling tale. It is one which celebrates in dramatic fashion the more humdrum argument and analysis of this book, for which reason it is included