Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

40 Never Seen rain prevented play until 4.30 pm. At this point ‘the conditions were more suitable for football than cricket, [with] a strong, cold wind’, 57 and Coulthurst was probably glad to be able to spend the day in the pavilion, trying to keep warm. When play finally started, the soft wicket was of no great help to the visitors’ bowlers, and Lancashire reached 198 for six in the 70.2 overs possible before play ended just before 7.30 pm. Coulthurst, listed at eleven, was no doubt hoping for better things on the second day. But no. On 28 August, only the West Country escaped a full day of heavy rain. Games at Bristol and Taunton were able to resume briefly, and just long enough at Taunton for Surrey to knock off the runs they needed to defeat Somerset. But there was no play at all in the day’s three other first-class matches, at Lord’s, at Southampton, and at Old Trafford. Unceasing heavy rain caused Lancashire’s game to be abandoned during the lunch interval, when it became clear that there would be no chance of a resumption; and so ended Lancashire’s season, and Jos Coulthurst’s first-class career. Perhaps he trod the Old Trafford turf before the game started on the Wednesday; maybe he even ventured on to it in the rain on Thursday. But he never had the chance to do so in anger during the three hours of actual play in the game. So who was Jos Coulthurst, and how had he forced his way into the Lancashire side for this game? And why did he not make up for his disappointment – I presume he was disappointed at the turn of events at Old Trafford – by gaining selection in a later season? Blackburn’s finest? Born in Blackburn on Christmas Eve 1893, just eight days after Fred Hyland’s arrival 250 miles to the south-east, Coulthurst showed his promise early. He joined the East Lancashire club as a teenager in 1907 or 1908 (sources vary) after playing a single game in the local Sunday School League, and moved rapidly from the third eleven to the seconds, where he played regularly before making his first eleven debut at Rawtenstall on 30 May 1914. His quick left-armers brought him one for 27 that day, although according to the local paper he would also have had the wicket of century- maker, and future Lancashire player, Alfred Pewtress ‘if the fielding had been up to concert pitch’. 58 However, he had not established himself in the first eleven by the time the Lancashire League was suspended at the end of the 1916 season, playing only very occasionally for the firsts in 1914 and 1915, and not at all in 1916. He had offered his services to the war effort in the previous year, but was rejected on account of defective eyesight. Re-examined in September 1916 he was accepted and joined the Army Service Corps (later the RASC); within two months he was in France. His enrolment papers show that the 22-year-old Coulthurst stood 5ft 7½ in tall, weighed 11st 10lb, and wore glasses to help correct his eyesight. 57 Manchester Guardian , 28 August 1919. 58 From an article on Coulthurst by ‘Nomad’ that appeared in the Blackburn Times , 12 July 1919. This article is also the source of all the extracts quoted in the following four paragraphs.