Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

41 As a clerk (whose overall standard the Army classed as no better than ‘fair’, with poor typewriting and no shorthand), he appears to have escaped being sent to the front. Indeed, cricket seems to have been as much a part of his war as was his contribution to the fighting, and he took full advantage of the opportunities available. He is reported as taking 93 wickets at an average of 3.72 for the ‘Annexe J’ team in France, though whether this was over a single season or over his entire Army career is not clear. He also played for the garrison side at Le Havre, alongside such players as H.D.G.Leveson Gower and John Daniell, and sometimes against an Australian services team that included the likes of Sgt-Major Warwick Armstrong. Coulthurst did not join up until September 1916, so presumably he was available for East Lancashire for the greater part of that season. But he did not play in the League that year. The club had recruited off- spinner Jonathan Brooks, the professional from Ribblesdale Wanderers, a Clitheroe-based club in the already-suspended Ribblesdale League, who played as an amateur in 1916 because the Lancashire League did without professionals for that one season. In 24 matches Brooks took 119 wickets for the club, still the club record for an amateur, and the second-best tally by an amateur in the League’s history. When the war ended, Brooks chose to return to the Wanderers. Thus, following his demob early in 1919, Coulthurst found himself an automatic member of the East Lancashire attack, which was described at the time as being ‘only of a weak character’ – Norbury apart, presumably. He had chosen to return to his home-town team despite offers from other clubs, including Rishton and Church, and a good decision it turned out to be. Although now a regular in the first eleven, Coulthurst began the 1919 League season appearing short of confidence, and ‘more workman than artist’. His first four matches brought him only eight wickets, but as his confidence grew so did his tally of wickets, with 37 in his next seven matches, including four six-fors and one seven-for. With Lancashire looking to strengthen their county squad, a trial game was to be held at Old Trafford on 28 July. By now Coulthurst had taken 72 wickets in the League at an average of 9.23, and his club were riding high in the league table, so it was no surprise that he was invited for a county trial. In 12 overs he took three for 37, Neville Cardus, no less, in the Manchester Guardian describing his bowling as follows: left arm and fast, [he] kept up a good pace for quite a long time, bowling very few loose balls. Now and then he tried a slow one, but his action gave the batsman warning. Surely the most difficult problem in the world for the bowler is to conceal his pace variations; the more one finds cricketers attempting this art and failing, the more one realises the greatness of George Lohmann. 59 Cardus regarded the bowling in this game as ‘very much below the level of the batting in point of the refinements which give the impression of county class … little of it had even a suspicion of the spin and variety which 59 Manchester Guardian , 29 July 1919. Never Seen