Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

97 The later years (1889-1904) recorded as ‘Coffee Tavern’, with the manager and his wife, a cook (the manager’s sister) and a waitress, as well as man who was a grocer. He was the oldest of this group of six adults, whilst Emmett’s family were living in Heaton, Bradford, with both sons working. The next few years saw him play some local cricket in Warwickshire, and further north when his school obligations allowed it, usually outside of term time. He also appeared in other games, his celebrity adding to the occasion. In the late summer of 1890, for example, he played in a match in Berkshire along with Frederick Spofforth and William Chatterton. The following summer, he appeared at Newbold Revel, an 18 th century country house and centre of local cricket in Warwickshire, making 65 before being run out, and taking four wickets. In August 1891, he dominated a match between a team from Rugby and Oxford against the West Herts Club, scoring 66 and 56 not out and taking 10 wickets. He also played in a one-day game between Burnley and Burnley and District, bowling just four overs. The same month he was due to appear at Bradford Park Avenue in a benefit match for the local professional, but the weather ensured there was no play. Back home he was not forgotten, and his name came up in the animated discussions at the meetings held in Yorkshire over the winter to consider organisational reform. As Louis Hall put it, there was a strong need to ‘find, perhaps, in some corner where they had never thought of looking, a Tom Emmett, a Bates or a Freeman.’ The following year, 1892, Emmett was at Rugby again. P.F.Warner, captain that year, informed the Morning Post that the prospects of the school side were ‘fairly good’, and they had 10 preliminary matches before meeting Marlborough at Lord’s at the end of July. Emmett was thus busy preparing the boys for their big contest with a series of regular fixtures against Oxford colleges, the Free Foresters and local sides. The reality was that Rugby had struggled against its rivals for some years during this period, and Emmett’s arrival did little to break a sequence of results which had included just one Rugby victory over Marlborough since 1881. Ever sure of his opinion, Emmett blamed excessive attention to academic work, which restricted the time for cricket. He compared the Rugby boys with those from Marlborough, and claimed, by the colour of their faces, that the latter clearly spent a lot more time outdoors playing the game. 65 To try and raise standards, he did his best to improve the quality of the playing fields, and as he explained in an interview in 1893, during the winter, ‘I must always be doing something or other, you know, or else I’m not happy – but I superintend the laying down of the turf and all other arrangements. I find, too, that I am all the better for the winter work – it suits me well.’ Despite this energy and enthusiasm, his desire to make changes reportedly shocked the headmaster, with Emmett suggesting to him that he could make a fine ground if he could cut some treasured trees down. 66 Emmett also appeared in local cricket for Rugby and for Rugby School Servants Cricket Club, taking nine wickets in an innings against Newbold Revel in August. He opened the batting in a strange game between Rugby Ramblers and Lutterworth, in which he was one of only three men to make double figures in a completed match, albeit with one of them making