Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

112 What’s in a name? considerable inconsistency in the nomenclature of these intermediate sides. In some cases the contemporary press refers to a particular side both as ‘Hall’ and as ‘L Robinson’s XI’ whilst the fixture against the MCC on the first two days in July, 1912, is listed in Cricket Archive as being against ‘L Robinson’s XI’ but appears in the Eastern Daily Press as being contested by ‘Hall’. In at least one game (against the Oxford University Authentics), which the Norfolk press lists under the ‘junior’ title, the side contained no fewer than four players with Test experience. This side was not greatly inferior to some of the teams that turned out for ‘L Robinson’s XI’ in first- class games and makes a mockery of the proposal that the label of ‘Hall’ automatically denotes a less prestigious fixture. The nomenclature in 1913 was similar to that in 1912 but the picture changed again in 1914 when all six matches that took place were played as ‘Old Buckenham Hall’. After the Great War an independent village cricket club reformed and reclaimed the title of ‘Old Buckenham’; what few matches that were bankrolled by Robinson continued to be played under his name or as ‘Hall’. The leading cricketer in the village team, L.W.J.Hart, also raised an eponymous eleven on numerous occasions, starting in 1919; some villagers played in those teams too but Hart’s elevens generally consisted of a better class of player than the humble villagers. In view of the not always clear-cut differences between ‘L Robinson’s XI’, ‘L.W.J.Hart’s XI’, ‘Old Buckenham Hall’ and ‘Old Buckenham’ and the huge variation in the standard in the games played under the various titles, it does not seem in the slightest bit valid to draw up a set of averages for those games which were not deemed to be of first-class standard. Nor, indeed, are details always complete for matches involving the village side. After Robinson’s death, Old Buckenham continued to host the home games of several teams with overlapping identities. The village side and ‘L.W.J.Hart’s XI’ retained their relative places in the pecking order while the slot for the most socially prestigious team was occupied by the newly- formed ‘South Norfolk Club’, described in chapters five and seven, who played friendlies of high quality at Old Buckenham Hall and who also started to organise tours in 1925. Other players than Hart did occasionally find themselves turning out for sides other than their regular eleven; for one game in 1924 ‘South Norfolk’ were so short that they were forced to enlist the services of no fewer than five of the village cricketers to field a complete eleven. By 1926, however, the South Norfolk club had moved so far from the village side, both in terms of the standard of cricket that they played and of their social class, that they were now completely distinct entities. For those not familiar with the geography of Norfolk, it is probably best to make it clear that Old Buckenham should not be confused with New Buckenham, Buckenham & Hassingham or Buckenham Tofts, all of which had their own cricket teams. In the period in which Robinson was active, the scores of three games, one each involving ‘Buckenham’, ‘Buckenham Hall’ and ‘Buckenham Hall Estate’, appeared in the Eastern Daily Press . Not one of the cricketers who turned out for these sides played in any team