Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

27 Lancashire with its most successful captain: Leonard Green skippered the side from 1926 to 1928 – and in all three seasons they won the County Championship. But although it was the end of the first-class line for Station Road, it was the start of a 32-year playing association with the Red Rose county for Hornby. However, it proved to be an inauspicious beginning for the youngster. He opened the batting in the first innings, scoring two, and batted at No. 5 when Lancashire followed on, bettering that score by just a single run as the home side, bowled out for 57 and 75, went down to a heavy defeat by an innings and 56 runs. But Hornby, who was dismissed in both innings by George Freeman (12 for 51 in the match), did manage to hang on to a catch in Yorkshire’s innings helping to send back the Yorkshire opener Joseph Rowbotham for seven. It was young Hornby’s only Lancashire appearance of the season. A week later, the two sides met again in Lancashire, at Old Trafford. Once more, Yorkshire inflicted another heavy defeat on their cross- Pennine rivals, winning by 165 runs. The sides met for a third time in Lancashire’s final first-class match of a six-game season in September. This time the venue was the inelegantly named Swatter’s Carr, Linthorpe Road East Ground in Middlesbrough. It was the second – and final – time the ground had staged first- class cricket. The only other first-class fixture played there had been three years earlier when Yorkshire entertained Kent. The Middlesbrough public saw Yorkshire coast to another easy win over the visitors with Lancashire going under by an innings and 40 runs to complete a hat-trick of defeats. It was a loss that was typical of a disastrous season for Lancashire, who lost four games and drew the other two. A year after his Lancashire debut, in a match starting on 29 June 1868, Hornby turned in a remarkable all-round performance for the Eleven Gentlemen of East Lancashire against the Australian Aboriginal Eleven at Alexandra Meadows. He took four for 39 in the Australian first innings and six for 41 in their second and scored 117 runs opening the batting. The match ended in a disputed draw with the East Lancashire side on six for one, needing just two runs to win with nine wickets in hand. It was the twelfth match of an extremely arduous tour for the Aboriginals, who played their first game against the Surrey Club at Born with a silver spoon