Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

36 Chapter Five First Matches with Sussex and the Consequences Having thoroughly disposed of Cambridge(shire), Clarke immediately began to explore the possibility of playing the two outstanding cricketing counties, Kent and Sussex. Purely due to the efforts of James Ireland, the proprietor of the principal Brighton cricket ground (founded in the 1790s by the Prince of Wales), Kent began playing Sussex, home and away, in 1825. In 1827, the press announced that whichever of the two counties won that year would ‘take the Championship Belt’, a direct reference to the belts often awarded to successful boxers. As previously noted, it was the origin of the inter-county competition. Before that time aspiring county sides (or their patrons) had one basic aim, to beat the combined strength of England, an ambition that goes back at least to the famous Kent v England match on the Artillery Ground in London in 1744. (Nottingham had made several attempts to beat England, notably in 1817 and 1818, but had fielded twenty-two players against eleven.) However, by 1835 no northern county had single-handedly challenged any of the southern counties, Kent, Sussex, Surrey or Hampshire. Kent lacked cohesion, the strength being split between two or three centres. The county had, however, played England twice in 1834, the home game being at Chislehurst. Then, in 1835, a local cricket enthusiast and patron, Thomas Selby, engaged Fuller Pilch at Town Malling – these days usually known as West Malling − and for several years this town became the Kent headquarters. Pilch made his Kent debut at Town Malling v Sussex in 1836. Surrey and Hampshire in 1835 were both in abeyance: Surrey wouldn’t revive until the creation of Kennington Oval as a headquarters in 1846; Hampshire found a suitable ground in Southampton and a suitable groundkeeper in Daniel Day, the latter in 1842, but the County Club was, to say the least, unstable. George Brown, the famous Sussex cricketer, took over Ireland’s Ground, the Brighton venue, in 1831 and was keen to promote matches on the ground – his enthusiasm naturally increased when the notable round-arm pioneer, William Lillywhite, took control of a second ground in the town, threatening Brown’s effective monopoly. Brighton was mirroring Sheffield where, as mentioned, the Darnall Ground lost out to Hyde Park in the 1820s. Brown was therefore very keen that the Nottingham side should come to Brighton and play on his ground – from Clarke’s viewpoint the whole venture fell nicely into place. The match in Brighton proved to be a battle of the round-arm bowlers: