Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

30 The 1820s to 3 to 2 in favour of Bury. However, Bury lost cheap early wickets in their second innings and at the close of the second day the betting was nearly even. Clarke scored two and 13 (out of 53 and 78) and bowled down six wickets. The report continues: ‘The play on all sides was admitted equal to any ever seen in Lord’s Ground, the bowling being in no wise inferior. This you knew was the opinion of Mr Brand, who expressed himself delighted with the game.’ John Brand first played at Lord’s (for MCC) in 1815 and from 1819 to 1823 appeared for the Gentlemen v Players at Lord’s. His estate was near Ipswich, though he was born in Armenia, compiling a dictionary of that country’s language. Haygarth describes Brand ‘as a successful batsman for about 15 seasons in the great contests of the day.’ Sadly he died on 29 April 1856 in a lunatic asylum, in which he had been confined for some time. William Mathews was employed by John Brand as a gamekeeper on the family’s estate, having moved there not long before the match in question – Nottingham were therefore probably right to query Mathews’ qualification for Bury or Suffolk. He was, according to Haygarth, the first bowler to bowl slow round-arm and had a few summers of great success, though his gamekeeping job ended in 1830, when Brand’s health began to decline. He took an inn in Woodbridge and died there in 1858. Clarke’s name is not to be found in any other local matches during 1825. The following summer, despite their defeat at the hands of Bury, Nottingham had the audacity to challenge, for the first time, the combined strengths of Sheffield and Leicester. The match was staged at Darnall on 24, 25 and 26 July 1826. Interest in the match was great – according to the Sheffield Mercury 25,000 spectators attended over the three days, or 30,000 in another account. The combined team won by the vast margin of an innings and 203 runs, almost entirely due to one player, Tom Marsden, who hit 227. The detailed score of this match was discovered a few years ago in the Sheffield Archives office by Steve Bilton and copied out by Mick Pope. It is the earliest known document which gives the full bowling analysis for a match – Barker and Clarke opened the Nottingham attack and the latter returned figures of 76.3-13-161-5. Marsden took eight for 76 in the two innings and had it not been for him, surely Nottingham would have proved the winners. The match was for 200 sovereigns. Thomas Barker was an exact contemporary of Clarke, both having been born in 1798. In contrast to Clarke, Barker’s delivery was most impetuous. Denison notes: ‘So violent was it, that he sometimes ran up to the crease and propelled the instrument of attack as though his head would follow the ball.’ His career almost ended when he was travelling to Southampton to play against Hampshire in 1843. Taking a cab whilst changing stations in London, the horse bolted and Barker broke his leg as he leapt from the vehicle. After the catastrophic defeat at the hands of the combined Sheffield and Leicester team, Nottingham arranged home and away matches with the Sheffield Club in both 1827 and 1828, but lost three out of the four meetings. These reverses were very largely due to the efforts of Tom