Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

If the picture conveyed by references to Sugg the footballer in the cricket literature is somewhat misleading, or risks being so, it needs to be remembered that Frank Sugg’s appearances for his various football clubs were in the years before the Football League was established and nationally organised competitive fixtures were put in place. There is therefore only patchy information on Frank’s football career in these years. Most of the matches in which he played were ‘friendlies’ about which there is limited accessible information. The various cricket writers may have relied on one source, Frank Sugg himself. In a profile based on a conversation with Frank Sugg in Cricket , 23 April 1896, W.A.Bettesworth reported: ‘He played centre forward for Sheffield Wednesday and captained the team. Afterwards he was captain of Derby County when the club was just beginning its career. Again, as centre half back, he captained Burnley and finally was in the Bolton Wanderers’ team in the same position.’ Could it be that Sugg, looking back a few years after he had hung up his football boots, exaggerated the role he played with these clubs, knowingly or not, and that that exaggeration has been carried forward by subsequent writers and, eventually, into his Wisden obituary? 53 48 Frank Sugg the Footballer 53 While this book was at the printers, an article by Ken Grime on Lancashire’s cricketing footballers was published in the Lancashire Cricket Yearbook , 2011. It covers similar ground to the chapter above, if more briefly, and reaches the same conclusion, that Frank Sugg’s involvement with various football clubs may not have been as significant as cricket histories have suggested.