Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

game, including by forming his own club, the Mersey Amazons – perhaps not the most apt of names. 96 Among the sports at which Frank Sugg excelled was the unusual one – for a cricketer anyway – of long-distance swimming. Public swimming baths were among the municipal buildings that were built in Victorian Britain by the councils of the larger towns to provide educational and recreational opportunities for their citizens. The first municipal swimming bath in Sheffield was opened in 1869 and several more were added before the end of the century. It must have been in one of these that Frank learned to swim as a youngster and it would be in character for him to have participated in the swimming competitions that were regularly organised by local swimming clubs. But it was after the Sugg brothers moved to Liverpool that Frank became seriously involved in the sport, his strength and stamina being well suited to the longer-distance events. He took part in long-distance swims on Lake Windermere and in Morecambe Bay, almost certainly uniquely among professional cricketers. References to Frank Sugg in the cricket literature invariably mention long-distance swimming as one of his sports and his association with Ted Heaton and Thomas Burgess who were among the best-known Channel swimmers in Frank’s time. The obituary of Frank in Wisden, for example, says ‘Sugg joined with Burgess and Heaton in swims.’ Frank befriended Ted Heaton who was superintendent of Liverpool Corporation baths and a well-known character in the town where he was known as ‘Professor of Swimming’. Heaton was a leading light in long-distance swimming events such as at Morecambe Bay and Lake Windermere and he made seven attempts to swim the English Channel between 1905 and 1911. None of these was successful. Thomas Burgess was a Yorkshireman who lived in Paris, but was also known to Sugg through his association with Ted Heaton. Burgess made no fewer than 23 attempts to swim the Channel between 1904 and 1922, succeeding only once, in 1911. This was the first successful attempt after Captain Webb’s pioneering swim 36 years Away From Old Trafford 98 96 Patrick Brennans, ‘The English Ladies’ Football Association’, at www.donmouth.co.uk . Sugg’s team was entered in the first round of the Ladies’ Football Association’s first Challenge Cup competition but the Amazons’ match against Rochdale never took place, perhaps because of local opposition. The team may have been short-lived.