Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

himself as ‘A Member of a Metropolitan Cricket Club’ complaining that players chosen to represent England and other important sides were of poor quality because too many of them were ‘veterans’, although he made an exception for the 57-year-old William Lillywhite: The gentlemen who select the elevens for the great matches seem to forget that, except in some very rare instances, (Lilly, for example, who is indeed a phenomenon), age must, will, and does tell, and youth must be served in cricket as in other matters, of which you know somewhat. Now, perhaps I shall make a good many cricketers laugh, and many more stare, when I say that, were I to select an All-England Eleven to beat any other Eleven in the world, I would not have either Pilch, Mynn, or Felix, and for this very reason – they are all three stale men. Great indeed have they been in their day – none greater in my somewhat limited recollection – but their time has gone by, and they can well afford to live upon their reputations without intercepting with the long shadows of their sunset other rising suns. This led to a flood of letters in defence of the ‘three stale men’, one of them in verse: Three cheers for the ‘stale men’, they’ll never say die Whilst a bat or ball they can wield; In truth we shall laugh, aye, and stare, if you cry That they ne’er should be seen in the field. Our Alfred the Great is full great as of yore, Aye, and Fuller, deny it who will? Though Felix’s infelix oftimes in the score, Yet, ‘in’, Felix can show you some skill. Then talk not again of the deeds they have done, But speak rather of those they will dare; For backwards their ‘sunset’s long shadows’ will run Till unseen in their noon’s brilliant glare. Three cheers for the ‘stale men’, no ‘freshmen’, we say, E’er again such a trio will be; Nine cheers will much better their merits display, For they are themselves three times three. Fuller certainly did not believe that his time had ‘gone by’ and instead of slowing down he appears to have taken new responsibilities in 1849 by coaching university undergraduates and developing the Prince of Wales Ground, off the Iffley Road in Oxford. Most of the colleges had their own sports fields and both University and Oxfordshire played at whichever one of these was available. Fuller may have been persuaded by ex-Kent colleague Edward Martin, who kept a cricket equipment shop in Oxford, and who came from a family of cricket-ball makers, that by providing superior facilities they could establish the official home for cricket in the city. Meanwhile, he went across to Cambridge to join the All-England Three cheers for the ‘stale’ men 103