Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

29 motorised public, but to concentrate on improving facilities at headquarters with only a limited number of outground fixtures. The only Surrey first-class match at Reigate was against Oxford University in 1909 (notwithstanding the fact that there was a Championship match against Lancashire at The Oval running simultaneously). Unsurprisingly perhaps, Surrey lost by a huge margin – an innings and 98 runs after the University had taken their innings into the second day and racked up 577 – so not a great deal wrong with the pitch. John Shuter had emerged from a fifteen year retirement to captain the side at the age of 54. No player older than that has appeared in a first-class match for Surrey before or since. H.D.G.Leveson-Gower’s XI played a handful of first-class matches against the South African touring side and Oxford University in the 20s and 30s, but it has never been other than a very occasional first-class venue, although it now regularly hosts Surrey’s 2nd XI. Cricket week did eventually go ahead in 1884, apparently with some success, partly due to Read’s intervention. The “week” this year is equal in most respects, superior in some to those that have preceded it. It has been favoured, for example with glorious weather, with a capital “wicket”, the new ground having come up to the sanguine expectations regarding it with the presence of one of the far-famed Australians, in the person of Mr Cooper whose services were secured through the intervention of Mr W.W. Read, with a distinguished list of patrons and patronesses and with a series of matches, equal in interest to all that have gone before. 38 Read was instrumental in organising a Reigate and District v Surrey earlier in the season, 39 but the realisation that the week would not be enhanced by a first-class county match resulted in a diminution of interest which along with the expense of the exercise led to its discontinuation a couple of years later. In its obituary of Read, the Surrey Mirror 40 credits him with the inauguration of the Reigate Cricket Week. What it does not say is that he actually did it twice, in 1879 and again in 1893, and although he played a significant part in those early ‘weeks’ from 1879 to 1885, it is with the resurrected week and the international stars it brought to Reigate with which he is most strongly 38 Surrey Mirror 9 August 1884 39 Surrey Mirror 23 April 1884 40 11 January 1907 Reigate Priory