Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

Before the advent of radio and television, which were the seed-corn for the growth of present-day mass communications, the British public, or at least the portion of it that could read, had to rely on the printed word for news and information about sport. At the time that Frank Sugg was making his way in the world of sport, there was a great demand to be satisfied as participation and interest in sport among the population increased. In cricket, national, regional and local newspapers all catered for this demand, the reporting of matches being remarkably detailed by today’s standards. Then there were periodicals devoted to sport, some exclusively to cricket, which covered their subjects in more depth than the newspapers and reported more extensively on sport overseas or in the schools – the public schools at any rate. Examples were the Sporting Chronicle , Athletic News and Cricket . These periodicals would add such inside stories, information and speculation about clubs and players as they could, though compared with the more sensational gossip-type columns of today, these contributions were models of restraint. They often included interviews with, or profiles on, leading players and as we have noted in these pages Frank Sugg was a subject in Cricket and in the Sporting Chronicle . Finally, there were cricket annuals that reviewed a particular season and included fixtures, records and other statistical information. Some were published by newspapers, others privately – often by sports outfitters – the pre-eminent example being of course the Wisden almanack. Others included James Lillywhite’s Cricketers’ Annual (red ‘Lilly’) and Frank Sugg’s Pocket Cricket Annual. 94 This last annual was edited and published by Frank and his brother Walter but seems always to have been known as the Frank Sugg Annual, another example of the higher profile of the younger brother in the cricket world. The annual first appeared in 1894, when both were engaged in first-class cricket, and continued annually until 1905. Copies of the annual are now rare. The 1897 edition is typical. It consists of 200 pages, including photographs and advertisements, some for the Frank Sugg business. As well as potted biographies, the laws of cricket, results and averages for all the counties for the previous season, and cricket records, a distinctive feature of the annual was sections on Advice on Batting, 94 Away From Old Trafford 94 The name of the publication varied slightly from time to time.