Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

28 money back; I was only in jest, and should certainly not have thought of paying you had Nottingham lost.’ The scale of the successes that attended Nottingham in their matches with Sheffield in 1822 meant that the two adversaries would not play each other again until 1827. As is clearly demonstrated, matches were played for stake money and Sheffield players couldn’t risk stakes on what immediately after 1822 looked like a hopeless case. There are a number of matches reported in the Nottingham press following the Nottingham v Sheffield game on The Forest; none feature William Clarke, but one game is significant in view of future events. On 11 October, the Nottingham Review reported: ‘On Friday last a match at Cricket in a field near Trent Bridge was played between Mr Samuel Chapman at the Three Horse Shoes & Crown Inn with ten of his men against XI of the West Bridgford Club.’ Chapman’s side comprised S.Chapman, G.Chapman, C.Singlehurst, E.Singlehurst, J.Selby sen, J.Selby jun, G.Selby, W.Jackson, J.Jackson, T.Horsley and C.Humphries. The Three Horse Shoes and Crown Inn later changed its name to the Trent Bridge Inn. Samuel Chapman was married to Mary Singlehurst, who was to marry William Clarke in 1837. The implications of the marriage will form part of a later chapter, but the question raised by this match is whether it was played on the field that is now Trent Bridge Cricket Ground – it could well have been played in an adjacent meadow. It is impossible to answer the question, though it is an intriguing one! Perhaps here we should note, by way of a diversion, one non-cricketing reference to Clarke in 1822; it occurs in the Nottingham Review of 26 July, advertising ‘A Gooseberry Show at Mr Clarke’s The Bell Inn, Angel Row’. What do they know of cricket who only cricket know? The first sporting reference, other than horse racing, in the Nottingham press for the summer of 1823 is dated 6 June: ‘Clarke and Simpson of Nottingham opposed Jeffries and Shreves of Birmingham at fives on Tuesday – Nottingham won five games to nil.’ All the detailed biographies of Clarke note that he was an expert fives player, but lost the sight of an eye when hit by a fives ‘between 1820 and 1830’. At least this 1823 report narrows the time span a little. It would seem that little or no research has been done into the playing of fives in Nottingham, or indeed into the game of fives in any real depth. From what we know of Clarke it would seem likely that he would play fives professionally but William Caffyn in his reminiscences makes the following comment: ‘He [Clarke] would play fives for hours together, and made such hard work of it that when he leaned exhausted against the wall of the fives court he often left a sort of silhouette of himself in perspiration on the wall!’ It is believed that Clarke had a fives court at the rear of the Bell Inn. The Nottingham Club played just two matches in 1823. The first was against XXII of the Fallowfield Club (also described as XXII of the South of the County). Opening the innings William Clarke scored 23 – again the highest score of the entire match. The opposition was weak, Nottingham The 1820s