Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

43 activities for his well-heeled and connected guests. The 33 volumes in the eventual library, publication of which commenced in 1885, were dedicated to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales – later to be King Edward VII. The tenor of the sporting activity so covered can be appreciated by noting that there were two volumes on shooting, namely Moor and Marsh , and Field and Covert , two volumes on fishing, and others on hunting, falconry, riding and polo, and big game shooting. Team games were not so thoroughly covered. The volume on cricket was initially published by Longmans in 1888 and the primary authors were Allan Gibson Steel and the Honourable Robert Henry Lyttelton. There were contributions within the book by Andrew Lang, W.G.Grace, R.A.H.Mitchell (no relation of Frank) and Frederick Gale. Further editions were published at regular intervals up to 1893, and again in 1898, 1904 and finally in 1920. R.H.Lyttelton was still a primary editor in 1920 with assistance from G.L.Jessop, D.J.Knight, John Shuter, and Rockley Wilson. Frank Mitchell was never a participant in the writing of that volume. Football was initially covered in a volume entitled Athletics and Football with a contribution on Paper Chasing, published in 1887. By 1899 Football had its own volume and Mitchell became a contributor, and he was again one of the authors when revised editions were published in 1901 and 1904. It is likely that his contribution to Bertram Fletcher Robinson’s book had been noted and admired. Football within the Badminton Library had as its main author Montague Shearman, who had the task of dividing his work into three parts. The first part dealt with the Eton Field Game, the Eton Wall Game, and then Harrow Football and Winchester Football, all of which had their differing rules. Two co-authors W.J.Oakley and G.O.Smith took on responsibility for describing Association Football, and then some halfway through the complete volume Frank Mitchell was engaged to write about the Rugby Union game. He was not entrusted with the opening chapter on the development of the game, which had a little to say about the breakdown in trust between the Northern clubs who favoured professionalism and their Southern counterparts who sought to preserve a wholly amateur sport. That opening chapter was written by Shearman but the next chapters dealing with technique were left to Mitchell. He wrote five chapters and their headings were Forward Play, Half-back Play, Three-quarter Backs, Full-back Play, and On Captaincy . No diagrams were included to explain the duties and responsibilities of each type of player but carefully chosen photographs illustrated the technical aspects of each role. It is surprising how little many aspects of play have changed in the last 115 years, and Mitchell wrote in an easy, confident style to describe his preferred approach to each. Here is his description of tackling taken from the 1904 edition: With regard to tackling, there is one great and successful method which should always be adopted when in the open. It is known as the Scots school-boy tackle. Run hard up to your man, and when within a few Rugby Union - as a player and writer