Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

twice against Sussex, the first-ever matches between those two counties. The first was at Godalming in Surrey on 8 and 9 July when Fuller impressed with scores of 24 and 26 as well as bowling down six wickets to help Surrey win by 197 runs. This was followed by another appearance at Lord’s on 12, 13 and 14 July, where MCC had decided to put on a revised version of Gentlemen v Players, but this time as an all-Gentlemen match with five professional engaged for one side including Fuller, and four for the other, including Lillywhite. The experiment did produce a closer game for once, with victory for the Six Gentlemen and Five Players. Then it was time for the second game for Surrey away to Sussex at Midhurst on 16 and 17 July, where Fuller gave Surrey a good start with a top score of 27 in their first innings and took four wickets in a match that ended unfinished due to rain. Fuller went back to Suffolk to play for Bury in the return match with Woodbridge on 22 and 23 July where he recorded the first hundred of his career, making 127 not out. This significant event was described in Scores and Biographies : ‘Though this was not a first-rate match, still it must be observed that Fuller Pilch’s runs were made against Mathews [one of the best bowlers of the day], W.Pilch, and Caldecourt.’ Then the attractions of Kent beckoned and back down south he went to take advantage of an engagement offered by the Town Malling club to play in two matches against Benenden. Twelve months earlier, a group of tradesmen had met at the George Inn in West Malling, a small market town near Maidstone, and formed a cricket team to rival an existing team known as ‘The Gentlemen of Malling’ which had been established the year before by Thomas Selby, a local solicitor. After a series of matches between the two rival teams, they were amalgamated to play in future as ‘Town Malling’, at the New Cricket Ground. The Benenden team had been in existence for some years before that and were now backed by Thomas Law Hodges, son of the High Sheriff of Kent. Hodges had plans that the club would eventually play on the family estate in Hemsted Park, near Benenden, but the first game was on the village green at Benenden on 30 and 31 July and ended unfinished. Both clubs were obviously ambitious but it was Thomas Selby who had come up with the idea of bringing two famous professionals, Pilch and Broadbridge, to his club that summer. It certainly paid off for Town Malling as more than 8,000 spectators turned up on 6 August for the one-day return match that was also left unfinished, even though it started at 9 am. Entrance was free but no doubt the local tradesmen made the most of their opportunity. Fuller did not exactly rise to the occasion, scoring only 26 runs during his four visits to the wicket and taking six wickets overall. Broadbridge fared better with 14 victims and top score in Town Malling’s first innings at Benenden with an unbeaten 23 out of 60. Fuller ended his summer playing in East Anglia. First, at Bury St Edmunds against MCC on 16 and 17 August, with each team strengthened by five professionals, he made 34 out of Bury’s first innings total of 74, but it was not enough to prevent victory for MCC by 12 runs. It was a different story Committed to East Anglia, for now 31