Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

20 Cricket in Sussex, 1891-93 bowled out for 82. No success at all came a week later when at the lovely Saffrons ground at Eastbourne, his team were annihilated by the Eastbourne club. Eastbourne made 337 for four and Brighton were all out for 71. Mitchell who opened scored only four. But great success came on 15 June when playing at Hove against South Saxons, a Hastings club, Frank Mitchell scored 102 not out of an undefeated partnership with F.Clements (101 not out) as their team scored 308 for four. Yet South Saxons secured an easy draw. The Sussex Daily News shows that Mitchell played in one other game at the County Ground for his chosen club – against Littlehampton in July, but he did not appear in any of the August fixtures, or in the Sussex Club and Ground v Young Players match in early September when other players from the Brighton Club were selected to play. He may well have been during the school holidays back at home in Yorkshire. During the winter of 1891/2 he became Hon. Secretary of the Brighton Rugby Football Club, formed in 1868 and the oldest Sussex club, and he played for Sussex County again in rugby football. Whilst with the Brighton Rugby Club, Mitchell was chosen to play against Blackheath, a leading club, and met two Lancing masters who were also Blackheath players. Because of those contacts Mitchell later chose Blackheath for his club rugby and began a long association that lasted until his death. When cricket was restarted in the early summer of 1892 a significant match was an appearance, not in Sussex, but at Trent Bridge when on 9, 10 May Nottinghamshire Colts entertained Yorkshire Colts. Mitchell was not yet 20 but opened the innings for his team in a drawn match scoring ten and 34. His efforts were greeted by enthusiasm by the cricket writer of the Sussex Daily News in his weekly cricket column. Back at Hove, he scored 80 against Brighton College, and 44 against Eastbourne but no reports have been found of other club cricket in that The Hove ground of the 1890s where Frank Mitchell first made an impression as a potential county player.