Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

Chapter Eighteen William Martingell joins Fuller at Canterbury The second Canterbury Cricket Week was announced before the start of the 1843 season as part of the Beverley Cricket Club fixture list. There were to be the same two matches as the year before, Kent versus England and the Gentlemen of Kent versus the Gentlemen of England. There would be two further ‘Grand Matches’ at other times, Kent versus Sussex and the Gentlemen of Kent versus Eton College. The club, still known as the Beverley Club, would play neighbouring clubs nearly every week without the participation of Fuller Pilch, except for matches designated as ‘Club and Ground’ against Leeds and Benenden. Expectations were high. The Kentish Gazette forecast that ‘the approaching season will doubtless prove the most attractive and splendid ever witnessed. Fuller Pilch has already become a resident at Canterbury, and the Beverley Ground is in the best order, and not to be surpassed by any in the Kingdom.’ It added that the pitch is ‘now under the superintendence of Pilch, undergoing all the needful preparation for the period when Kent’s manly sons will enter the lists in amicable strife against those of other counties of England, for the laurels of cricket.’ Fuller’s duties would also include providing practice sessions for club members, and it was decided to support him with a full-time assistant to lessen the bowling load. William Martingell seemed to be a suitable candidate. Fuller had first seen him in 1839 while acting as umpire in a Town Malling match at Mitcham and, in the absence of a regular Surrey county eleven to take advantage of his talents, the 19-year-old had moved to Kent the following year to hire out his services to any club that needed, according to Scores and Biographies , ‘an exceedingly good round-armed bowler, rather fast.’ He took seven Town Malling wickets when playing for Penshurst and later bowled Fuller Pilch himself in a Tunbridge Wells and Hastings match. They played together for Tunbridge Wells against Sevenoaks in 1841 where Martingell was employed for a season, and Martingell began playing regularly for Kent soon after. Still only 24 years old, he was the ideal choice to join Fuller at Beverley and he was engaged in 1842 for £60 a year ‘as a resident bowler at Canterbury who, with Fuller, will attend on the Beverley ground daily, to afford the members an opportunity to practice.’ The young man was delighted with his appointment. Denison said of this arrangement in Sketches of the Players : ‘Martingell, like all others who have looked into and considered the science of the game, became a vast admirer of Pilch; and his sole desire at this period of his life appears to have been to be so placed as to fall under the 81