Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

Chapter Three Uppingham Rovers, 1874-1913 Lucas also kept up his connection with the school through the Uppingham Rovers Cricket Club, a travelling team of past and present pupils. Among the club’s founders were his brother William and C.E.Green, whose friend Edward Rutter suspected was the ‘good financial angel’ of their tours. 26 Their motto was Solvitur ambulando , which can be translated as ‘you solve your problems while walking’ or, as one of the team had it, as ‘life is made better by roving’. They aimed ‘to keep up a good standard of cricket, to foster esprit de corps and to form a firm tie between past and present’. Their first-ever match was a close and exciting draw against Rugby School which W.S.Patterson thought ‘typical of the Rover spirit – keen to win if it can be done, but if defeat comes, chivalrous enough to accept it cheerfully’. They had no home ground but toured the country playing mostly two-day, two-innings matches. For a while the Rovers were the best of all such travelling amateur teams and from 1879 to 1882 did not have to exercise their cheerful chivalry, because they were not defeated. The team ‘could have held its own with any county eleven in the country, and the Central Press Association sent a reporter round with our team to report daily our scores and doings.’ 27 The main source about them is The Doings of the Uppingham Rovers , a series of seven large, lovingly compiled, leather-bound books, accurately described by Patterson as ‘elephantine volumes’. 28 They are a thoroughly good read and the way in which they are written epitomises the spirit of the Rovers. They record the cricketing and social activities of a group of young men who clearly enjoyed one another’s company. Like all such groups, they could be somewhat exclusive and they were sometimes rather condescending towards those less privileged than themselves, but they come over as essentially likeable. Their often juvenile humour was most obviously expressed in excruciatingly bad puns which, in case the reader missed them, were emphasised in italics. Even as a young man, Lucas was rather more serious-minded than some of the others, but he entered into the spirit of their activities and clearly thoroughly enjoyed them. The anecdotes about him are of no great significance, but I have quoted most of them because they give some insight into his character. 22 26 Edward Rutter, Cricket Memories , Williams and Norgate, 1925, p 70. 27 C.E.Green to the Rovers’ ‘Jubilee’ dinner, 1913. 28 I am very grateful to David Ashworth, president of the Uppingham Rovers, who kindly allowed me to see The Doings and made me most welcome. David broke Bunny’s record for the highest aggregate of runs scored for the Rovers although, as he was careful to point out, it took him about 25 more innings.