Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

83 Tragedy mid-1880s, and a well-respected member of the club’s committee since 1876, and latterly its treasurer. He had had two benefit matches along the way - one for Colne (against Burnley) in 1879, when he was dismissed for nought (no freebies for the beneficiary in those days!), and one for Burnley (against Nelson) in 1894 when he managed just one run more. He also played for Burnley sides in odds matches against the touring Australians in 1878 and 1880, and also for a Rochdale side against the Australians in 1878. As a batsman, they were not his favourite opponents: his scores against them across four matches were six, nought, three, nought and two, though in three of those innings it took a bowler of the skill of Fred Spofforth to dismiss him. Burnley were a founder-member of the Lancashire League in 1892, having also played in 1891 in its brief predecessor, the North East Lancashire League. Dick Boys captained them in their first four Lancashire League seasons; when in 1893 they won the first of their (to date) 15 league titles, he was their leading run scorer with 522 runs at an average of 23.72, well ahead of the tallies of the club’s two professionals Walter Hale (473) and Joseph Hewitson (316). By the end of the 1895 season he was approaching a figure of 1500 runs in the League, and had already surpassed 50 dismissals - with more stumpings to his name than catches. As a batsman, it is fair to say that Dick Boys was not particularly a crowd-pleaser. ‘His style of play may not always have suited unfriendly audiences,’ wrote the Burnley Gazette in 1894, ‘but his patient batting and sound defence have on numberless occasions proved of the highest service to his side, and many are the games he has saved when the prospects have appeared all against him’. He never seems to have recorded three figures; his highest known score was an innings of 95 for Burnley against Church in a second eleven match in 1879, while his highest for the first team were scores of 89 in 1885, 82 not out in 1888, and 80 in 1884. A portrait of Dick Boys that accompanied local newspapers’ reports of his tragic death.