Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

73 Incredible Success of the All-England Eleven Clarke was conspicuous by his absence; he and other notables were in fact appearing on the same days in the Sussex v MCC match at Brighton, Clarke being part of the MCC team. John Chapman scored 28 for Nottinghamshire who won by ten wickets. With the Trent Bridge Ground at a low ebb and the town of Nottingham beginning its expansion outside the traditional ‘town walls’, especially in the fields to the south and thus towards the River Trent, it is surprising that at some point between 1850 and 1890 the builders didn’t take over the Trent Bridge Ground itself. The first reason was that the freehold owners of almost all of West Bridgford, the Musters family based at Colwick Hall, which stood on the north bank facing Gamston across the river, but also owning Bridgford Hall (in West Bridgford), would not release any land for development in the village. By the time that they had decided to do so – in the late 1880s and 1890s − the County Cricket Club was at its most prosperous. In 1885 the Club had demolished and rebuilt the Trent Bridge Inn; the following year the Club took the lease of an extra piece of land on the south side of the ground opposite the pub and built what at the time was the most palatial cricket pavilion in England. Within a few years the expanded ground was surrounded by houses, but the importance of the cricket ground had now been firmly established – in addition to cricket, Notts County Football Club, a founding member of the Football League, used the Fox Road side of the ground for its matches until 1910. Clarke continued at Lord’s in 1848, even though he arranged an additional six AEE matches. He appeared in a thirteen-a-side practice match on the ground on 22 May and then an unusual fixture among MCC members and professionals, Under-hand v Round-arm, on 5 June. His first serious game was for North v MCC at Lord’s on 12 and 13 June, when he took 13 wickets for the North. He played for MCC v Surrey Club at The Oval two days later. In 1846 and 1847 he had deliberately held back his AEE matches until after the Canterbury Festival; however, this summer he squeezed two AEE fixtures in a gap in MCC’s match programme, taking the England side to Birmingham and Worcestershire during the week commencing 19 June. It was fresh territory for the travelling professionals. Making his debut for Clarke’s team in these early games was Tom Box. He had been the Sussex wicketkeeper since 1826 and was aged 40 when making his first appearance for the AEE. Despite his rather advanced age, Box was to be a regular in the team until 1855. Caffyn comments: ‘Like most wicketkeepers of that time he set himself to look after the off-balls and allowed the leg ones, to a great extent, to look after themselves.’ In 1847 he had given up the old ‘Prince of Wales’ ground in Brighton, part of which was sold for housing. He then ran the Egremont Hotel in the town. Later on he worked on Prince’s Ground in Chelsea, dying whilst working the scoreboard on the ground during the Middlesex v Nottinghamshire match of 1876. The match was abandoned as a sign of respect for the old cricketer. Clarke obviously valued Box’s experience and Box was appointed, more or less on his match debut, as a member of the AEE committee. Later in the season Clarke arranged another two AEE matches in the MCC