Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

letterhead. But notwithstanding its diversification, cricket bats and equipment remained the mainstay of the Sugg business. The firm had its own stand of willow trees for bat manufacture. As with other bat makers, production was small-scale and labour- intensive, a skilled craft rather than an industrial activity. The Sugg brothers were joint managing directors: one of the other two directors, and the company chairman, was Gilbert Jessop. The shareholders’ register gives Jessop’s occupation as ‘gentleman’ but he was not a wealthy man and would have had few reservations about becoming a business associate of the Sugg professionals. 104 Jessop was one of the most popular cricketers of his time, with, like Frank Sugg, a talent for big hitting and fast scoring. Frank Sugg had the instinct to appreciate how valuable would be an association with ‘The Croucher’ from a marketing point of view. Certainly the firm made good use of the association. Illustrative of that is a poster advertisement of Frank Sugg Ltd of Lord Street , Liverpool, featuring Boundarie, Jessop and Invinsa cricket bats. Sugg products were distributed liberally to leading cricketers in return for endorsements. An advertisement for Frank Sugg Ltd in Athletic News in 1906 headlines ‘Jessop and Fry, a Great Combination who have sent Frank Sugg a Testimonial for the “Boundarie Bat.”’ (No concern there about conflict of interest for Jessop.) Bat manufacturers vied with each other to incorporate improvements into their bats; many, including Sugg, took out patents, or at least applied for patents, for their innovations. Most involved improvements to handle design, as in the case of Frank Sugg’s bat patented in 1896, but some were oddities, for example bat blades that were triangular in cross section or blades that were coated in cork. After incorporation, the Sugg business continued to expand and more branches were opened. The firm’s catalogues, describing the products on offer with their prices , were substantial publications. The 1909 edition of the cricket catalogue, for example, runs to fifty profusely illustrated pages with details of such equipment as lawn mowers, line markers and nets as well as bats, balls, leg guards, gloves, blazers, caps and other cricket paraphernalia, and includes endorsements from several of the leading cricketers of the day, Frank’s Business Career 107 104 There is no mention of his connection with the Suggs’ business in Jessop’s autobiography, A Cricketer’s Log , or in Gerald Brodribb’s thoroughly researched book about him, The Croucher, published in 1985. This suggests that Jessop’s time commitment to the business was limited and that his role was ‘non-executive’.