Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

19 twenty years before the formal establishment of the club. Reigate v United South Eleven In 1871, still not aged sixteen, Read batted at No.3 for Twenty of Reigate Priory in a three day match against a strong United South of England XI. A fixture against the United England XI had been played intermittently since 1856, but there had been some splintering in what in 1846 had begun as the All England XI. In the first innings, he was bowled by Willsher for no score and in the second, caught and bowled by Silcock for a single, as the local team lost by ten wickets. So, the match was not a success in terms of either the result or Read’s personal performance, but he could not have failed to gain from the experience of competing with the quality of cricket played by those who took his wicket and playing against men such as Tom Humphrey, Harry Jupp, Edward Pooley and James Southerton who within a couple of years became his colleagues on the field of play if not actually in the class- segregated Surrey dressing rooms. Three of the Nightingale family played in the match, which was covered by the local newspaper, though the cricket itself received less attention than the weather and some of the locals managed to watch the play without paying the admission money. This grand three days’ match commenced on Monday and finished on Wednesday. The weather up till Monday afternoon was warm and pleasant; but the heavy thunderstorm which then occurred and stopped play for that day, was succeeded on Tuesday and Wednesday by cold winds which by no means tempted people to go and look on. And although there were a good number of spectators in the field each day, yet there were quite as many who, being too poor or too mean to pay for admission, watched the game from a long wall at the back of the houses in West-street, and whose view ought if possible to have been kept off. As it was we shall be pleasantly surprised to hear that Jupp and Humphrey, our two respected county cricketers for whose benefit the match was played reaped any pecuniary benefit from it at all. However that may be, the match offered Reigate people a rare opportunity of witnessing some first-class play at the manly game by some of the foremost cricketers of the country. It was a foregone conclusion that the 11 would be victorious; but had not the twenty been disappointed at some of their best men, they might have given Reigate Priory