Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

Chapter Twenty-Three Fuller’s final seasons Between 1850 and Fuller’s last appearance for them in 1854, Kent played 23 matches and lost 18 of them. They drew three and won only two – at Hove against Sussex in 1850 and at The Oval against Surrey in 1852. Fuller would later confess to Frederick Gale: ‘The fact was we all grew old together and I often think some of us played a year or two too long; but then the truth was, though I say it, the public liked the names of Mynn and Felix and Wenman and Hillyer, Adams, Dorrinton, Martingell - ay, and of Fuller Pilch too. And I think we kept the candle burning a little too long.’ Fuller played in 20 of the 23 Kent matches and he continued to be Kent’s leading run-scorer with 565 runs from his 37 innings, the next highest being Thomas Adams with 534 runs from 44 innings. In 1850 Fuller continued with his development of the Prince of Wales Ground at Oxford, in partnership with Edward Martin. The pair had made great progress with ground improvements. The Oxford Journal reported that ‘no expense has been spared to make it as perfect as its limited space will permit’. They were now making cricket bats at the ground, both the ‘plain’ match bat and the newer, spliced version, 15 trading as ‘Fuller Pilch and Martin’. Fuller also concentrated on spring coaching for the undergraduates, missing four games for Clarke. But instead of bringing a Kent side this year, he used his influence to persuade Clarke to bring his All-England Eleven to play Eighteen of Oxfordshire on 16, 17 and 18 May, hoping to encourage further the development of cricket in the county. The Oxford Journal was impressed: The match excited considerable interest and attracted some hundreds of persons from this city and neighbourhood; and the ground, with its marquees, stands, and tents, presented the appearance of a fair. A capacious booth, well supplied with refreshments of every kind by Mr Greenwood of the Maidenhead Inn, afforded great accommodation to large numbers who gladly availed themselves of the good cheer within. Encouraged by the atmosphere, Oxfordshire ran riot and won by 187 runs. The All-England side went off to play three more games without Fuller, who returned home to concentrate on four consecutive matches for Kent 106 15 Spliced bats were introduced in the mid 1830s, according to Hugh Barty-King’s book ‘Quilt Winders and Pod Shavers’, perhaps initially as ‘the haute couture of the bat maker’s art’. Many professional cricketers of this period were bat makers at some time in their lives. The Alfred Mynn bat made by Pilch and Martin, at one time on display in the Lord’s museum, has no splice.