Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

clubs organised by churches, chapels or workplaces, or representative of districts of the town, outlying villages or particular trades or professions. The proliferation of clubs meant that the level of participation in the sport was very high and the clubs provided a thriving network of sporting and social contacts. The oldest cricket club in Sheffield was Hallam Cricket Club, established in 1805, and other leading clubs were Wednesday and Pitsmoor. Unfortunately the records of these local clubs have been largely lost as club officials discarded old minute books, correspondence files, scorecards and the like as not worth keeping. Notable early Sheffield cricket grounds were at Darnall and then Hyde Park, but the need for better facilities led to the establishment of a ground at Bramall Lane in 1855 on the fringes of the town, away, in those days, from Sheffield’s increasingly smoky atmosphere. After the foundation of Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1863, Bramall Lane became the county club’s headquarters and continued to be so until 1902. The Bramall Lane ground was to be a favourite of Frank Sugg throughout his career. On their return from Ilkeston, the Suggs bought a house in Pitsmoor, a mile or so to the north of the centre of the town. Until the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation, and especially the growth of the steel and other heavy industries, gathered pace in Sheffield as the nineteenth century progressed, Pitsmoor was a village surrounded by farms, fields and woodlands with a scattering of small workshops and a few fine houses built for the better-off. Today Pitsmoor is a sprawling, unattractive inner suburb, but when the Suggs moved there it remained a pleasant place to live, still with plenty of open spaces and woods. Contributing to the growth of the area, a new road, Burngreave Road, had been opened in 1835 to replace the earlier turnpike road between Sheffield and Barnsley. Solid middle-class houses had been built along the new road and Hubert, now firmly established in his solicitor’s practice in the town, bought one of these villas, called Fearn Lea and numbered 217. The house no longer exists but a number of others of the period survive, initially handsome three-storeyed properties, now a little neglected and in dingy surroundings. The Sugg boys made good use of the open spaces around their home in Pitsmoor. According to Frank, ‘As lads we were always playing cricket. We would get up during the summer at three or 14 Family Background and Early Days