Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

16 could make the ball turn on any wicket. So with Tom Richardson at one end and two slow bowlers like T.P.Harvey 22 and J.Keene 23 at the other it might have appeared so. These three were a great combination. Most of the matches in those days were whole day affairs, and the Club headquarters was at the “Cricketers”, then kept by J.Southerton, who served a fine lunch. 24 Two other teams played on the Green at the time at this time. The “Old Buffers” [sic] in front of the police station and Mitcham Wanderers opposite the Vestry Hall. Each of them were responsible for bringing many youngsters to the front. The Wanderers, at one time, had five men in the side who played in county cricket, R.Pearson, E.Bale, R.Turner (Worcester), Dan Sullivan (Surrey and Glamorgan) and myself. 25 That was Herbert Strudwick, reminiscing in the 1930s. The 1938 Yearbook mentions twenty Mitcham-born cricketers who had played for the Surrey county 1st XI – and that excludes Southerton and Richardson who were born elsewhere. He goes on to mention Tom’s brother, Charlie, as a member of the Wanderers team. The young Tom Richardson learned his cricket in the same nursery and made an immediate impact. His first match was for the ‘Old Buffer’s’ Cricket Club, Mitcham’s junior wing. Organised by Fred Gale, they played on another part of the Green, opposite their headquarters, the Britannia public house, and took their name from the pseudonym under which Gale wrote in Bailey’s Magazine . It was not long, however, before the young fast bowler graduated to the senior side. In the 1890s it was quite usual for there to be three matches in progress simultaneously: 26 Mitcham and the ‘Old Buffer’s’ and the parallel side of Mitcham Wanderers which Strudwick represented before achieving greater distinction on the county and international stages. At the turn of the century the ground was unfenced and there was no pavilion. Tents were erected for changing facilities. That was all to change in 1904 when the still used pavilion was first opened, the occasion being marked by a match between the Mitcham Club and a county eleven raised by Richardson. The road which separates the pavilion from the playing area is now rather busier than it was at the time and adds an interesting dimension to present-day cricket on Mitcham Green which in 1969 was recognised as a Conservation Area by the London Borough of Merton. In 1889, Tom appears in the Mitcham team photograph, so it is to be assumed that he was playing regularly for them. On 20 May 1890 he played 22 Thomas Harvey (b 1860) never played first-class cricket, but played for Gentlemen of Surrey (1887 -1889), Surrey 2 nd XI (1891-98) and Surrey Club and Ground (1893) 23 John Keene later played for Surrey, Worcestershire and Scotland. 24 James Southerton had died in 1880, the same year in which Strudwick was born when Richardson was a boy of nine. His widow, Sarah, continued to run the ‘Cricketers’, so the J.Southerton referred to here is clearly one of the Southerton family rather than the famous 19 th century professional cricketer. 25 Mitcham Cricket Club Yearbook 1937: Pearson and Bale did not play first- class cricket; Richard Turner played 52 matches for Worcestershire either side of the First World War and Dennis Sullivan 132 matches for Surrey and Glamorgan between 1914 and 1928. 26 Francis Old Mitcham - pages are unnumbered Mitcham