Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

16 Tracing Clarke’s Early Life but on Thursday morning (when the parties appeared on the ground) a discovery being made that some very ungentlemanly proceedings had taken place, the Nottingham Club absolutely declined to play. Notwithstanding that, a number of both parties amused themselves till evening with their favourite exercise. Nottingham scored 91 for the loss of 16 wickets; Clarke opened the batting and scored three; England did not have an innings. During these early years of his career in major matches, Clarke frequently went at the top of the order. Perhaps the loss of his eye affected his batting ability in later years. One of the major difficulties in staging matches involving ‘professional’ players on the Racecourse in Nottingham and indeed, at the time in many other places, was that the spectators were not charged admission. Enclosed grounds for which an admission charge could be made were few and far between over the whole of England. This forced players to bet on the various aspects of each game, as well as the final result, in order to earn money. Cricket teams in the south of England were often picked and paid by rich benefactors, or speculators, but the Nottingham and Sheffield sides had to stand alone and gather money where they could.