Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

Later that year Hayes was among the guests at the Savoy Hotel, along with ‘a fine collection of great cricketers of past and present days’ at a dinner to mark Jack Hobbs’ passing W.G.Grace’s record of 126 first-class centuries. In the autumn of 1925, he approached Surrey claiming ‘temporary financial difficulty’ and asking for help. The committee agreed to let him have ‘a sum not exceeding £75 in such amounts and at such times as [the Secretary] may decide after interviewing Hayes’. Because of their own financial difficulties, Leicestershire were clearly not an option. The outcome of the interview and the Secretary’s decision is not recorded, but it seems unlikely that Hayes was financially destitute. He was after all in employment with Leicestershire. The likelihood seems to be that he was looking for help in gaining an entrée into the licensed trade, which was eventually to be his main source of post-retirement income. 1926 This year Leicestershire entertained a Danish touring team and, having by this time acquired a residential qualification for the county, Hayes played five matches in the Minor Counties Championship with the second eleven, taking 6 for 42 against Cambridgeshire and contributing 145 towards a victory over Norfolk by an innings and 134 runs. He had last played in the competition twenty-five years before. With an eye to the future Hayes took a tenancy of the Freeman’s Hotel on Aylestone Road and with the help of his wife, Lily, began a profitable business, accommodating most of the visiting counties there. Then, in early July, a couple of weeks after his 145 off Norfolk, against the odds, in his fiftieth year he returned to first-class cricket. No doubt he drew comfort from the example of J.H.King, who had played regularly for Leicestershire in the previous season at the age of 54. An injury-hit Leicestershire squad was not helped by George Geary’s selection for the Gentlemen v Players match at The Oval. The consequence was nothing if not dramatic, if not quite the ‘tragedy’ reported by the press. Nottinghamshire won a fascinating game of cricket, successfully chasing over 400 to win the match, but much of the press publicity was saved for Hayes: 102 Leicestershire