Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

disingenuous, to put it mildly. In his 12 first-class innings, he batted at number five or higher on six occasions, four of the six in his first four matches. It was only as his poor form continued that Sugg was dropped to eight or nine in the order. He also complained that he had not been picked for any matches in August, which he described as ‘a batsman’s month’ 34 and he was self-confident enough to make his feelings known to the powers that be at Yorkshire. But they had a lesser opinion than Frank of his abilities. He was guaranteed no more than three matches in the next season, and Frank’s demand for more games, including three or four in August, was rejected. One can imagine how Mr J.B.Wostinholm, the autocratic Yorkshire secretary, would have reacted to such demands from a young man who had played only a handful of first-class games and with limited success. If he thought he could browbeat the secretary, Frank was proved wrong. Although he was selected for Yorkshire’s match against Gloucestershire at the start of the 1884 season, Yorkshire clearly did not see him as a player for the long term. Indeed, Wostinholm informed Derbyshire that Frank Sugg was qualified to play for them as he had been born in the county. Derbyshire promptly invited Frank to play for the county in all their matches in 1884. Frank’s response was to turn down the chance to play for Yorkshire against Gloucestershire and instead to accept Derbyshire’s offer, remarking that ‘I saw not the slightest hope of ever being regularly in the Yorkshire eleven’ (presumably a barb at the authorities and not his assessment of his ability) and ‘naturally I preferred to play for the county in which I was born.’ 35 This has a hollow ring. Although Derbyshire were a first-class county at the time, they were one of the weaker counties and they were to drop out of the Championship in 1887. But Frank had to earn a living. Match fees for occasional matches for Yorkshire were not enough for a young man to live on, let alone to make a respectable contribution to the budget of the Sugg household, shorn of its main breadwinner. Frank had witnessed the life of a professional cricketer at first hand and had no wish to abandon his chance of pursuing his own sporting career in favour of full-time employment, probably, given his background, as a clerk in some lawyer’s office with long hours poring over and transcribing legal documents. The inducement for Frank to join a far less prestigious county than Yorkshire was the offer of a Playing for Yorkshire and Derbyshire 34 34 Cricket , 23 April 1896. 35 Ibid.