Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

revealed later by Thomas Selby as coming from Fuller Pilch, who was now apparently happy to face anyone other than Alfred Mynn: Sir, In answer to Mr Dearman’s challenge in your paper today to play at single wicket with any man in England. I beg leave to accept that challenge, and hereby offer to make the match: to play home and away for £100 each match, and to toss for the choice of the place of playing the third or conquering match for a similar sum should each party win one of the two matches. I wish to avoid advertising my name, and will therefore merely add that I live within 35 miles of London, and am Sir, yours respectfully, A Cricketer There was a note added by Bell’s Life: ‘Should Dearman agree to the above, we will furnish him with the means of ascertaining who the Cricketer is, and where the match can be made.’ Soon after it was reported that Mr G.Hardesty of Sheffield, acting rather like a modern-day boxing promoter, was ready to make the match on Dearman’s behalf in a contest with Fuller Pilch. A month later Fuller withdrew and chose to name Alfred Mynn in his place. The first match was at Town Malling on 20 August with Fuller supervising all the arrangements, which contradicts the suggestion that the challenge had been taken up by Mynn because of Fuller’s numerous engagements, rather than because he preferred to opt out of something that he did not enjoy if expected to be one of the two players, whatever the prize money on offer. The Dearman party arrived the day before play was due to start and were met at Rochester by Mynn in a carriage lent by Thomas Selby, who also offered them all hospitality at his home. Mynn took the affair very seriously, as he was always struggling financially and could do with the money, and had actually gone into training to improve his fitness. Patrick Morrah in Alfred Mynn and the Cricketers of his Time , published in 1986, says that while preparing to meet his opponent he asked Pilch: ‘Fuller, do I look fit to play today?’ There was no doubt in his friend’s mind: ‘Why, he looked fit to carry a church and a whole congregation round the town.’ There were 5,000 spectators on the ground to see Mynn win easily by 112 runs, followed afterwards by an impromptu three-a-side single-wicket game to give the crowd some further entertainment, which featured Hardesty, Mynn and Dearman against Pilch, Redgate and ‘a gentleman on the ground’. There was a similar large crowd at Sheffield a week later to witness Mynn’s victory by 36 runs in the return match and so the title ‘Champion of England’ changed hands. A new Champion of England 61