Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

32 would have been qualified to play Minor Counties cricket for Norfolk from 1927. If, on the other hand, he spent some time in Scotland before reaching Norfolk, he would have had to wait two years before being qualified by residence for his new county. Either way, in May 1928 we find him playing in a Norfolk county trial match at Lakenham, in which he scored 12, one of his highest recorded scores (!), and took one for 49 in 15 overs, bowling ‘well but without the best of luck’, according to the EDP . But this was not enough to get him in the county side for the 1928 season; and by 1929 he had moved on again, for one final time. One last move The first 35 years of Hyland’s life saw him living in seven different places, or eight, if he did indeed go to Scotland. But the move he made to Cheshire in late 1928 proved to be his last, as he spent his remaining 35 years in or very close to the town of Northwich. He was tempted there by the offer of a job as the groundsman and playing professional for ICI at their Winnington Works just north of the town. He, Ada, Beryl and their son Kenneth, who had been born at Ringwood in July 1923, joined in due course by Philip, born in Northwich in April 1932, settled initially at 10 Moss Terrace, a house that looks out straight across the bowling greens and cricket ground of the Winnington Park club. Later they moved the short distance to 149 Beach Road at Hartford, in an area that today has a quiet, middle-class, suburban feel to it. Fred Hyland had come a long way from his early days as a poacher’s son in rural Sussex. With a secure job and a growing young family, Hyland now finally put down his roots. Based on the match reports printed in the Northwich Guardian , he regularly played and umpired (not in the same game!) for Winnington Park in matches in the Manchester Association. At first their star bowler, his performances on the cricket field seem to have fallen away after the 1929 season; but he had other sporting activities to keep him occupied, for he also represented Winnington Park at hockey, bowls and billiards. Off the field of play he was an even busier man. For a start, he was committed to his role as ICI’s groundsman. He looked after two grounds, Winnington Park Recreation Ground and Moss Farm, and under his stewardship both had reputations as among the best- maintained grounds in the county. He trained to become an expert in turf preparation, and the quality of the squares he tended is still recalled today by older members of the local sporting community. As well as preparing pitches for competitive ‘external’ matches, he was responsible for the pitches used in the ICI Works knock-out competition, at a time when 20,000 people worked there. With each department fielding a team, ‘the quality was high and the competition fierce’. 52 In the winter he tended the hockey pitches at Winnington Park. 52 Like so much of my information on Fred’s activities in Cheshire, this quotation comes from a personal communication from Mike Talbot-Butler, doyen of the Cheshire County League and of many other sporting activities in Cheshire, and an erstwhile acquaintance of Fred Hyland, to whom I am greatly indebted for his wide-ranging assistance. Of the Late Frederick J.Hyland, again