Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

the same side as Redgate who took six wickets to help the North to their six-wicket victory. The Gentlemen v Players match at Lord’s followed on 25 and 26 July. This time MCC’s attempts to balance the strengths of the two teams by allowing the Gentlemen to field eighteen players paid dividends as they won by 35 runs. Fuller went straight from Lord’s to Gravesend to play on 28, 29 and 30 July for Town Malling against Kent, where, despite another half-century, 57 out of 140 in their second innings, it was not enough to prevent another win for Kent. Two days later he was at Chislehurst, again playing against Kent, but this time for the England Eleven on 1 and 2 August. Fuller had not yet severed all his connections with Norfolk and he joined his brothers at Norwich for the annual match with Yorkshire. This brief return to the familiar fields of home in the first game on 4 and 5 August inspired him to prodigious efforts in a close-fought match. His 15 was top score in Norfolk’s first innings of 52 in reply to Yorkshire’s 114 and then he joined William to bowl them out in their second innings for 49, taking three wickets himself, with the other seven falling to his brother who finished with a match haul of twelve victims. This left Norfolk needing 112 to win and they crept closer and closer to victory but Fuller’s undefeated 25 could not be supported and they finished 24 runs short. Finally it was time for Fuller to represent his new county and it appears that Thomas Selby and company may have held back this historic event until it could be a feature of Kent’s match on 8 and 9 August against Sussex on the ground at Town Malling, now known as ‘Fuller Pilch’s Ground’. The timing was perfect as more than 12,000 spectators were attracted to the match over the two days. To everyone’s disappointment his debut innings was ended by Lillywhite before he had scored, and a desperate attempt in the second innings, top-scoring with 44 out of 131, failed to avert a loss by 32 runs. The next week Fuller travelled with MCC to Brighton to face Sussex on 15, 16 and 17 August, but then it was time for a long journey up to Leicester for the second North v South challenge on 22, 23 and 24 August where, despite his new qualification for Kent, he was again selected to play for the North. The venue did not please the many enthusiasts in Nottingham, whose county had provided more than half of the North eleven, and hundreds of them walked the whole way between the two towns, determined to support their players. By 10 am on the first morning of the match, over 5,000 people were on the ground. The Leicester Journal reported ‘so great an assemblage of Cricketers from all parts of the Kingdomwere seldom or ever known to be collected together.’ This was the famous match in which Alfred Mynn scored 125, despite batting for all of nearly five hours with an injured leg, and then being sent back to London immediately for medical treatment, travelling on the roof of a stage-coach because his leg had stiffened and he could not sit inside. The injury was so serious that one stage there were concerns he might have to lose the leg. Recovery was slow and he did not play cricket again for nearly two years. 52 Town Malling and Mr Pickwick