Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

100 them field. For the character of our Eleven vide Lord Eglinton’s speech at Glasgow, in 1851. F.Bailey, Esq., at Kelso, in proposing the health of the Eleven this year said, ‘I need say very little in regard to them. They are too well known to all of you. It is well known that in almost innumerable multitudes of matches in which they have been engaged for several years past they have invariably so conducted themselves as to have gained the highest character for honour, straightforward dealing and integrity, that any body of public characters ever possessed in Great Britain.’ We shall not alter. I should not have been so personal, but this is got up by a party at the back of the United, and they are made the tools, through which means they think to break up the All England Eleven. It will all prove useless, for their foundation is built upon a rock, and will take as much to break it down as it would the Tubular Bridge, for it is too firmly established. I have been the means of taking the best players – ay, the best players – and other connected with them, renowned for cricket , such as a Pilch, a Felix, a Mynn, a Box, a Parr &c., to every man’s door in England and Scotland – and, if I live and am well, in Ireland and in the heart of Wales next year; which, if it had not been for me, the majority of the people in those countries would never have seen such cricketers. I have been the means of bringing some of the best players from distant counties for Londoners to see them they had heard of, that if it had not been for me would have remained in obscurity in the hedge rows and bye lanes of England. I have been good enough to be Daguerreotyped for the frontispiece of ‘The Cricket Field’. I have been thought good enough to take me in oil-painting to be put in the Pavilion at Lord’s. I have been thought good enough to ask my opinion about the merits of players when they were going to choose them for the great matches at Lord’s – not only good enough for that, but they knew they should have it honestly – and been thought good enough to manage the field with the best elevens. And to conclude, to show the estimation we are held in, we are engaged in forty-two matches for the next season of 1853, beginning at Lincoln on the 4th of May; then for Ireland and Scotland, and play our way back to the Southern and Western parts of England, and shall be playing every day till the 30th of September. We play in ten new districts, and all our matches will be conducted on the same principles as they have hitherto been – honour, honesty, good feeling, and good conduct. Wherever there is new talent that is worth changing, it will be brought out. I am now thought good enough for Nottingham to ask to play Nottingham against all England at Lord’s. I am now thought good enough for Nottingham to ask me for Nottingham to play Sussex, or any other eleven, provided I will play (mark that, you impartial ‘Lover of Cricket’!), bar Surrey and Yorkshire. Because they would cause no interest, having beaten Surrey; and I am now thought good enough by such players as Felix (President), Mynn, Pilch, Box, Parr, Hillyer, the Controversy