Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

67 Chapter Eight Incredible Success of the All-England Eleven In that initial year of 1846, Clarke had arranged just three matches, detailed in the previous chapter. In 1847 the number rose to ten (MCC’s fixture list amounted to 18); in 1848 to 16 (MCC 16); in 1849 to 21 (MCC 12); in 1850 to 24 (MCC 17); and in 1851 to 34 (MCC 16). The majority of MCC matches were played at Lord’s and very few of the remainder were staged outside the traditional, southern home of cricket. By 1851, therefore, Clarke was organizing twice as many matches as MCC and, of course, having no ‘home’ ground, these were spread across the whole of England from Newcastle to Teignbridge, plus matches in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The importance of the rapidly expanding railway system cannot be too strongly emphasized in looking at the spread of Clarke’s fixture list, both in numbers and geographically – the map on page 70 has been included to demonstrate this point. In terms of popularity and the demand from clubs to stage All-England matches, the nearest, perhaps the only, comparison must surely be the Australian touring sides of the 1880s before the tourists’ fixtures were governed by, effectively, the M.C.C. In both cases the owners or controllers of the individual venues saw that a large profit could be made. The nearest modern-day equivalent, on a much smaller scale, is the clamour by county grounds to climb on to the Test/ International bandwagon. Of course the railways were paramount, but Richard Daft in Kings of Cricket tells a rather sad railway tale, probably dating from near the end of Clarke’s career: Once, too, a railway porter tried to get him [Clarke] to leave a non- smoking compartment in which he was enjoying a cigar, and which at first Clarke refused to quit. The porter, placing one hand on the window-sill, waved the other to call the attention of the station-master; and while so engaged, Clarke clapped the lighted end of his cigar on the back of his hand. The official sent up a howl, but Clarke coolly told him he was merely extinguishing his weed as he had been bidden and if any harm had come of it, it must be entirely owing to the owner of the hand and not to the owner of the cigar. Humour was rather more robust in those less delicate times. Clarke in 1847 retained his post as a ‘ground bowler’ at Lord’s and as such was extensively used by MCC in their matches – he played in a dozen games between the last week of May and the second week of August when the MCC season virtually closed. Clarke, in his team’s second summer, therefore arranged his fixtures from mid-August onwards. The first of the ten All-England Eleven matches commenced at the Wharf Street Ground