Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

52 season: … and at Northampton, where the first ‘Grand Match’ witnessed in that locality was played last August, great efforts are being made with a view of constituting such a club as shall be worthy of that sporting and spirited district; whilst Nottingham long famous for its Cricketers, although somewhat slow in its movements in 1844, has already promulgated a promise to be often in the field in 1845. It was a source of disappointment last year that the great talent of which Nottingham and its vicinity can boast was so seldom placed before the public. I have been unable to find in local newspapers, or the various books on county cricket, any reason for Clarke’s decision not to arrange matches, though perhaps the financial returns for 1843 were not as rosy as Clarke anticipated. The only difference in the Nottingham cricket scene in 1844 compared with earlier years is the creation of the Nottinghamshire County Club at Southwell. This all-amateur side, which played originally under the title ‘Nottinghamshire’, was later to play as ‘Gentlemen of Nottinghamshire’. Their first extant match score, v Grantham on 8 and 9 July 1844, has five of the eleven − C.Batchelor, F.Noyes, T.B.Redgate, C.Creswell and J.B.Warwick – who represented the full Nottinghamshire side on occasion. In this initial game they beat Grantham by an innings and 43 runs. Maybe the foundation of this club caused a temporary jolt to Clarke’s plans for more county games at Trent Bridge. The nearest Trent Bridge came to a quality match in 1844 was the hybrid Gents of Notts with four Players of England v Players of Notts. This took place during the second week of September and the feature in it picked up by the press was: ‘George Parr’s batting was superior to anything we have seen for some time.’ Parr, a younger brother of Sam Parr, had been born in Radcliffe on Trent in 1826 and was therefore aged 18. It was his first appearance in a match of this quality; he was destined to succeed Fuller Pilch as England’s premier batsman and to act as Clarke’s lieutenant, and then to take over control of the All-England Eleven and Nottinghamshire on the death of the latter. William Clarke played in the two North v MCC matches of 1844 and also for England v Kent at Canterbury. Whilst bowling in the Canterbury match, Clarke achieved a hat-trick spread over the two Kent innings and most unusually the hat-trick involved dismissing the same player twice, J.F.Fagge, who batted at No.11 in the first innings and then came in at No.3 when Kent lost their first wicket in the first over. Clarke took twenty-four wickets in these three games, plus seven in the Gents of Notts v Players of Notts at Trent Bridge. Denison’s averages give him 34 wickets and add another match to his record, which has me baffled, but it’s not a major problem! His name appears in only four ‘local’ matches published in the Nottingham Review, two for Holme Lane, one for Junior Forest Club and one for the minor Gentlemen v Players match at Trent Bridge on 19 August. The 1845 season is infamous for the recording that Clarke claimed all ten wickets in an innings playing for Nottinghamshire v Leicestershire. The match was played at Trent Bridge on 16 and 17 June. Denison styles it Fate Takes a Hand