Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

12 excellent cricket ground’. According to Emmett, his decision to try to make a career of cricket led him to respond to an advert for a professional at Harrogate. He recalled, ‘I hadn’t much to give up, and on the advice of my friends I wrote, after a good deal of hesitation. The letter was returned ‘with thanks’ and there and then I made up my mind never to apply again anywhere, and I never did.’ Although he did not secure the appointment, nevertheless he had made a first step to being a professional, and before long he was playing for Halifax Trinity. Although Emmett could not recall whether he had been paid either 5s or 2/6d by Halifax, he was nevertheless now in the ranks of paid sportsmen. What we could remember was that his cricket bag was made of a local newspaper, and he invariably went out in clogs. 9 By 1862, Emmett was playing for Halifax Trinity on a regular basis, although the club professional for the season was William Swain. Interestingly, when Trinity played Illingworth in July, Emmett played for his old club, possibly to help balance the two sides, and took five wickets in the first innings and four in the second. Despite this, he was on the losing side as Halifax Trinity triumphed by an innings and nine runs. The following season, he appeared in Trinity’s first game of the season, against Burnley, where his main contribution was to take two wickets in a match where complaints were reported that a Burnley bowler had raised the ball above head height, contrary to the laws of the game. At the end of the month, he impressed with both bat and ball away against Accrington, taking five wickets and scoring 16. In June, he played in a hotly contested match against Lockwood, where his bowling was described as ‘extraordinary’, and he took five wickets in the first innings and four in the second. At Todmorden at the end of the month, three bowlers, including Emmett, were commended for their ‘excellent’ bowling and he then showed ‘good skill’ with the bat. He made a small contribution to an easy win over Huddersfield in July, but ‘shamelessly missed’ a catch off the top scorer for Earlsheaton, before making up by scoring 18. At the end of the summer, he bowled ‘extraordinarily well’ against Lascelles Hall. Two of the toughest games that year were against a much stronger Bradford side. In early July, he played in a poorly matched contest, taking four wickets in the second innings as Halifax were easily defeated. The return game in September was an equally uneven contest. Bradford batted first and scored 272, with Emmett taking six wickets. Halifax then batted and were all out for 47 and 70. In the second innings, Emmett scored 40 and was the only batsman to reach double figures. The summer of 1863 was also notable in other ways. At the end of July, he married Grace Emmett – a relative who lived locally - in the Halifax registry office, where he was recorded as being a resident of Illingworth. Grace was a 19-year-old factory worker who lived with her mother, and they were to be married for 40 years. The other significant development in his life was that he was for the first time exposed to some of the greatest players of the age, appearing against All-England twice in a month. In May 1863, he was in a Pudsey side which was dismissed for 66 and 81, coming up Early days (1841-1866)