Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

32 In 1879 he was third in the 440 yards ‘over three flights of hurdles’ and, as Prvt W.W.Read, second in the 300 yards race ‘in full uniform’. 47 Maybe not in the C.B.Fry league as an all-round sportsman, but certainly evidence of a Victorian gentleman who enjoyed his sport and, moreover, was good at it. The mens sana in corpore sano ethic and spirit of muscular Christianity prevailed as the Mayor quoted Lord Lytton: Better than fame is still the wish for fame, The constant training for a glorious strife; The athlete nurtured for the Olympian games Gains strength at least for life. On the football, however, there is strong evidence that he was an extremely effective full-back and centre-half (his height of just under 6 feet and muscular frame of more than 14 stones would equip him ideally for the role), representing the Priory Football Club for more than a decade and ceasing to play the game only on his marriage in 1885. In the 1870s, Reigate Priory, many of its members cricketers switching sports for the winter (but that’s how Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County started), was one of the leading clubs and one of the fifteen participants in the very first FA Cup competition in 1871/72. However, that distinction is somewhat diluted by the fact that they withdrew from their first round tie against Royal Engineers allowing their opponents a walk-over and an eventual passage to the Final. No professionalism then of course (at least officially); that was to come in the next decade when clubs like Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End and West Bromwich Albion were to eclipse the amateur ethos of public-school based sides, but until that time came, Reigate managed to have a share in what limited limelight football enjoyed. Their record in the FA Cup was not particularly distinguished. Only once in 1875/76 did they progress beyond the first round, only to be beaten 8-0 by Cambridge University in the second. They were founder members of the Surrey Football Association and did rather better in the local Surrey Senior Cup, contesting all five of the finals between 1882/83 and 1886/87 and winning two of them. In the early stages, it was all very casual and informal. The football club was formed in 1870, only seven years after the 47 Reigate, Redhill, Dorking and Epsom Journal 10 24 June 1879 Reigate Priory