Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

names were household words from a sizeable professional playing and ground staff; and to stage big matches, some of them internationals, featuring their own players. He was paid £275 per annum, less than the Clerk, considerably less than the Club Secretary, but probably more than most of the players and acceptable enough at a time of inter-war depression when three million of his fellow citizens were in the dole queues. His prediction seems to have been right in the case of Laurie Fishlock who in his time also became a stalwart of the county, less so in the case of Whitfield who nevertheless played over a hundred first-class matches. Another of his protégés, Jack Parker, would within a couple of years be commanding a first-eleven place. It is one of those nice little coincidences of continuity that life occasionally produces that the issue of the South London Press which reported Hayes’ death in 1953 also carried the news of Fishlock’s own appointment as cricket coach and physical training instructor at St Dunstan’s School in Catford. Hayes played with Honor Oak on Sundays and had half-a-dozen scores over fifty, as well as 53 for Sandham’s XI v a Twickenham XV. His last surviving recorded appearance for Honor Oak was against Catford on 9 August 1930, when he was aged 53. According to the Lewisham Journal , he bowled, batted and fielded well, then met with a slice of bad luck: The veterans, E.G.Hayes, of England and Surrey fame, and Cecil Gibson bowled exceedingly well, the former with wretched luck and both better than their following figures indicate: Hayes 18-1-58-2, Gibson 21-3-88-5. . . . Hayes’ catch to dismiss Meikle off a slashing shot was well worth seeing. Honor Oak collapsed in an extraordinary manner. The first, second and third wicket all fell at 24, but the fourth, which fell at 49, was the turning point of the game. Hayes never looked like getting out, having scored 24 (five 4s) of the 25 put on when he hit a ball to Greenbaum at mid-off. There was no question of a run, but the latter, seeing the batsman outside the crease, suddenly shied at the stumps. Hayes, to avoid being hit, jumped over the ball and Tyler, gathering the ball very wide of the wicket had the bails off in a trice. It was good opportunism on the part of Greenbaum, a very fine piece of work on the part of Tyler, but extremely bad luck for Hayes. Homecoming 109