Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

88 Your obt servant T.Richardson. The consideration of the matter was deferred for consultation with the President. 206 Subsequently – …it was decided that the benefit given to Richardson in 1899 had ended the agreement made with Richardson on Aug 5 1895 and that any arrangement with Richardson be from year to year. The question of whether he should be considered a regular playing member of the eleven for 1903 was referred to the captain. 207 Livingstone Walker, who decided that he should. However, between then and the start of the season It was decided that Richardson’s winter wages for 1902-3 be one hundred pounds and that the Secretary inform Richardson that the matter must be reconsidered at the end of the season. 208 The negotiations coincided with a difficult period in Richardson’s private life. His third child Edith Norah had recently been born, the elder two, Tom and Kathleen being just five and two at the time. He was completing the first year of his tenancy of The Cricketers Inn in Kingston and it is possible that it was about this time he met his future ‘housekeeper’, Emily Birch, who was working in the refreshment room at the local railway station. His cricket career was clearly on the downward slope and, notwithstanding the bravado of his stance vis-à-vis the Committee, a speech he gave at New Malden makes clear the extent of his – possibly alcohol-induced – depression. ‘PATHOS OF PROFESSIONALISM’ Tom Richardson, the Surrey professional made a pathetic speech at a cricket club social gathering at New Malden. When a cricketer had reached the top of the ladder, he said, he found there was no enjoyment in the game, save when he was playing in charity matches, and thus helping others. He would never advise a young fellow to aspire to the position to which he had attained, for when one got to such a position one had such a long way to drop. That was the sad side of a professional cricketer’s life. “I would that I had never aspired to the position I have held, because I am falling greatly,” were the cricketer’s final words. 209 Richardson’s weight was increasing, partly as a result of his alcohol intake – and it was not just beer. It was this season that his friend and admirer Herbert Strudwick began his long career with the county. Strudwick was a 206 Surrey CCC minutes 20 November 1902 207 Surrey CCC minutes 18 December 1902. 208 Surrey CCC minutes 19 March 1903 209 Daily Express 28 October 1902 The Twilight’s Last Gleaming