Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

As another way of earning some money by making use of his knowledge of the game, Frank turned to journalism. In earlier times a number of sportsmen were paid by newspapers or periodicals to write on their sports, notable examples in cricket being Ranjitsinhji, C.B.Fry and P.F.Warner. Following their lead, Frank was engaged by the Liverpool Echo for a number of years to write a weekly article on cricket during the season for the paper’s Saturday edition. ‘Frank Sugg, the old Lancashire cricketer, gives our readers the benefit of his ripe experience in dealing with problems on the field,’ trumpeted the Echo . It is not known how much Frank was paid for his articles. His column was syndicated to other papers in the Liverpool area such as Buff , the Saturday sports edition of the Bolton Evening News , and therefore had a wide circulation. The articles in the Echo were of several column inches in length and were invariably of a serious nature. Frank had no time for gossip and sensationalism (in so far as this was permissible in the media at the time). There is little doubt that the articles were Frank’s own work. After all, he had written for his Pocket Cricket Annual for a number of years. One feels that Frank Sugg would have had no truck with the idea of a ghost writer though no doubt he was helped by his colleagues on the paper. One of these expressed admiration for his work on the occasion of Frank’s death. The serious flavour of Frank’s journalism can be gathered by mention of a few of the articles published in May and June 1929. The 11 May article was headed ‘Flaws in the Management of County Cricket’ and called for the establishment of a County Cricket Association to take over the functions exercised by MCC and its Advisory Committee. He regarded MCC as too elitist an organisation ‘to take upon itself a complete domination of county clubs’. He believed the proposed change would correct the discrimination that he perceived against players from the North and Midlands in the selection of Test teams. Frank was writing ahead of his time, as he was in articles that urged action to remove ‘shamateurism’ from the game. The article of 18 May, headed ‘The Airy Pedestal of the County Umpire’, argued for an improvement in the pay and conditions of umpires and in the way they were appointed and called for ‘an exhaustive enquiry’ into all aspects of the umpire’s role and position. On 1 June in an article headed ‘Ruling Pad Play out of Cricket’, Frank deplored the growing use of pad play and the readiness of batsmen to dispute leg-before decisions by claiming they had touched the ball before the pad was 118 Umpire and Journalist