Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

been spent at Trent Bridge, in our own personal expenses, and in treating customers and expenses of that kind . . . ’ ‘Now, Mr. Daft, I would ask you, has none of this money gone in betting?’ reported the paper. They admitted that some has gone at the racecourses, but claimed that losses were not great. There was no evidence that Richard, at any rate, attended more than one race meeting a month. Harry told the court that he received £100 as a professional cricketer, but it had cost himmore than half of that to play. He, too, had lost a little at racing. Richard added a description of a real financial tangle: some years before, he had borrowed a sum of money from Messrs Wright, and when that was called in, he borrowed £209 from his two eldest daughters, which they raised from their interest in a will: he had to pay them back before he borrowed the £1,400 from all three daughters. Mrs Daft mortgaged her property at Radcliffe to lend £200 to Richard and Harry. Then it was all over. Harry’s effects were sold by auction on 12 February, 1898. Mary’s property was the only saving grace amid the financial shambles. It is not clear when the brewery perished. Richard still had friends in the world of cricket, and in March 1898, on the nomination of Notts, he was appointed to the list of first-class umpires. He remained a respected figure in the cricket Winding Up 129 Daft’s old inn is nowadays hemmed in by traffic paraphernalia and overlooked by floodlighting pylons.