Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

69 aware of the important part he played in all the games during Stoddart’s tour of 1894-5. His comparative failure on this tour was the greatest disappointment to us, and affected our position most seriously. 158 ‘Felix’ had commented on the increasing weight but was perhaps not aware of the rheumatism. Richardson himself was painfully aware that his contribution had fallen short of the high standards established on the previous tour. Interviewed for The Boy’s Own Paper , before some airbrushed in comments on the importance of cricket to the Empire, he says, in reply to a question about playing cricket twelve months a year: My own experience is against it. The strain is so great that it is a mistake to play all year round. 159 He kept a diary on this tour, a couple of extracts from which are given earlier. It was recently auctioned at Christie’s, the estimated price £10- 15,000, rather outside the resources of the ACS. It is leather-backed and contains the original pencil. Although it starts cheerfully enough, commending the play of Clem Hill in the match against South Australia it peters out at the end of January in the middle of the Fourth Test in which Richardson comments favourably on Hill’s innings to the end of the first day: ... Hill’s 182 not out ..one could not speak too highly, he having played by far the best innings I have ever seen. 160 There are no more entries, significant perhaps in that its discontinuation reflects Richardson’s utter exhaustion by this stage of the tour. It is not only cricket, however. Colour is added by the relation of a number of off-the-field incidents: …went to hear concert at Town Hall which was very good but a bit too classic for us. 161 On arriving at Brisbane at 10:30 it was something dreadful, there being a large and disorderly crowd in which Mr Stoddart got his watch stolen. 162 went to the convict station St Helena and saw some very rough looking customers. 163 According to J.T.Hearne’s description, these were striking sheep shearers convicted of shed burning. Hearne’s diary is a fuller – or, at least, more accessible – account of the tour in both its cricketing and non-cricketing aspects and was serialised in The Cricketer in 1982. It is consistent with the Richardson version and the Jack Mason biography in the anecdotes about Stoddart’s watch being stolen in Brisbane and about the snake, although in the case of the latter it does add: 158 With Stoddart’s Team in Australia – quoted in Cricket 1 September 1898 159 The Boy’s Own Paper 1899: pp651-2 160 29 January 1898 161 18 November 1897 162 24 November 1897 163 28 November 1887 Australia 1897/98