Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

7 Introduction In certain ways this book has much in common with an earlier biography in the Lives in Cricket series, that on the Australian sportsman, Ric Charlesworth, written by Tony Barker. Just as Charlesworth’s premier sport was field hockey (at which he won a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics and captained Australia in no fewer than 130 of his 227 internationals) and cricket was something of a side-line (he played just 47 first-class matches), so the pinnacle of George Raikes’ sporting career was as a goalkeeper in the soccer Home Internationals and his deeds as an allrounder for Norfolk and Oxford University were of secondary importance. Whilst Raikes’ impact on the world of cricket may fall a little short of justifying a stand- alone biography, his role in two sports render him a most interesting and appropriate subject for a ‘Life in Cricket’ and he was certainly no ‘mug’ with bat or ball – he won two ‘Blues’ (to go alongside his four gained at soccer), was one of the first cricketers to master the googly and the top- spinner, and juggled his time as a highly successful captain of Norfolk with his duties as a man of the cloth. This volume is unapologetic in presenting much theoretical material necessary to place Raikes’ life in context. Whilst many readers of the Lives in Cricket series may be familiar with the genesis of the googly as a science (as opposed to a happy accident), they are much less likely to be familiar, either with the rapidly changing world of late Victorian football within which Raikes kept goal or, especially, with the theoretical underpinning of the religious beliefs which may have had a profound influence on his sporting career. As a result, brief ‘laymen’s guides’ to late 19 th century soccer and Muscular Christianity are provided – readers who are already au fait with these subjects may skip those passages if they so wish. When I started to write this biography I had intended to include full press reports of Raikes’ performances in goal in all four of his Home Internationals and in both his games for Norfolk County, hoping that they might be of interest, especially to non-footballers. Alas, to keep the manuscript to an acceptable length, it was necessary to prune heavily, leaving intact only for the readers’ delectation his debut in ‘big’ soccer for Norfolk County in which, despite conceding no fewer than eight goals, he received the first of an almost uninterrupted series of ‘rave reviews’ that propelled him inexorably towards international honours.