Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

C.P. enjoyed even more success in November 1874 winning three events at the Jesus College Athletics Day – the shot-put, the long jump and the 110 yard hurdles – besides finishing second in the 100 yards sprint and the cricket-ball throwing event, as well as finishing third in the mile race. His growing confidence as a runner, and status within Oxford athletics, can also be gauged from the fact that during the term, he also appeared in various ‘Stranger’s Handicaps’ held by other colleges on their own sports days, which were open to all of the University community. These races were ideal showcases for C.P. to display his prowess to a larger audience, and it must have given him much pleasure to finish second in races at Keble and St. John’s. In 1875 he won the Jesus College hammer and long jump events, throwing a distance of 85 feet, and jumping a distance of 18 feet 7 inches. He was also in the shot-put, high jump, and in quarter-mile and mile flat races. Indeed, his good form in these running events and in the ‘Strangers’ Handicaps’, fuelled his ambitions of winning an athletics half-Blue. The sport was on the up at that time at Oxford, and in early March 1876 the University had to stage, for the first-ever time, a series of trials and qualification events so that the athletic elite from all of the colleges could qualify for the University’s Athletics Sports later in the month. The University Sports day was when selections for the match against Cambridge would be made, and C.P. duly took part in the high hurdles and hammer events, and secured qualification for these events on the opening day of the Athletics Sports, held on 25 March 1876 at the Marston Ground. It was a fairly successful day as he finished second in the hammer, throwing a distance of 94 feet 5 inches, and was runner-up as well in the 120 yards hurdles, beaten by one and a half yards by E.B.Nash of Lincoln College. These performances earned Lewis a place as Oxford’s second string in the hammer and hurdles events in the Varsity athletics match against Cambridge on 7 April 1876 at the Lillie Bridge track in West Brompton, London. In the words of Jackson’s Oxford Journal , the event was ‘in the presence of a very large and fashionable company’, and perhaps this large gathering as well as the prestige of the event, slightly put C.P. off his stride, as in the hammer he failed to record a legal throw and finished fourth. He might have been pressing too hard to impress, but he might also have injured himself in attempting to throw as he did not run later in the afternoon in the hurdles. Undergraduate Athlete and Rugby Player 36