Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

Unsurprisingly they finished top of the Minor Counties Championship table and were challenged by runners-up Buckinghamshire. In the ‘play-off’ at Lakenham, Buckinghamshire batted first but, largely due to a fine innings of 98 by Geoffrey Colman, Norfolk conceded a first-innings lead of just seven runs. When Norfolk’s attack, headed by Falcon with four for 18, skittled Buckinghamshire for just 90 in their second innings, victory looked a certainty. Unfortunately the Norfolk top-order collapsed, so that when Falcon and Richard Carter came together the score was 39 for five. They increased the score to 81, whereupon a further four wickets fell without addition, and Buckinghamshire eventually triumphed by eight runs, with the bowling honours going to spinner Frank Edwards who took eleven wickets in the match. It may have been an anticlimactic end to the season but the Eastern Daily Press was still prompted to flights of fancy with the headline: ‘Should Norfolk Be A First-Class County?’ In the end the paper decided that, sadly, there was an insufficient fan base to support first-class cricket in the county. 37 The Challenge Match drew crowds of over 2,000, but attendances were much smaller for less important games. Whilst ambitions for first-class status were never met, Norfolk do seem, however, to have been one of the more important of the Minor Counties for, with the exception of the Australians and the 1936 Indians, they were awarded prestigious fixtures against all the touring sides from 1927 until the Second World War. To what extent this reflects Norfolk’s position as a ‘senior’ second-class county per se and how much it was due to Michael Falcon using his position on the MCC Committee to ensure that touring teams would make regular trips to Lakenham is unclear. He certainly valued these games highly as he was known to stress publicly the importance of maintaining high-quality pitches in the county in 66 At His Peak: 1919-1929 37 It was nearly forty years since the Eastern Daily Press had last campaigned for Norfolk to be granted first-class status. In the mid-1880s the county was certainly strong on paper, with the batting anchored by the skipper and old Cambridge Blue, Kerry Jarvis, and a varied and penetrative bowling attack. Unfortunately the most skilled amateurs were not always available. More importantly, just as in the 1920s, the public were not interested in significant numbers to make first-class cricket a viable proposition. Crowds in the region of just 300 were noted in the Eastern Daily Press reports of the time, which contrast with the attendance of over 4,000 spectators who attended Norfolk’s visit to Northamptonshire in 1883. (The ACS has – in more recent times – classified six Norfolk matches played between 1820 and 1836 as first-class.)