Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

August 1904, he wrote in the Leicester Daily Mercury : ‘Looking across the lapse of years in manhood’s misty light it seems almost impossible to realize that one’s first matches should have affected one as they did. One now sees the real worth or insignificance of them, how little we ought to permit them to trouble us, but the sad heart of the unsuccessful colt of to-day and his inability to receive consolation, at the best “wearing a face of joy” when smiles are far away, is a visible symbol of inarticulate feeling never wholly outgrown, though less palpable and defined in later years. It is this nervousness and the heavy feeling of wandering about in some strange twilight land which terribly handicaps the young player, and which, if you have any faith in his ability at all, necessitates trusting him to long experience as absolutely necessary ’ere he begins to realize himself and his powers.’ Meanwhile something clearly had to be done if King wished to pursue a career as a professional cricketer. He was already 24 and his father, who wished him to enter the family’s building firm, could not support him indefinitely. He was fortunate in obtaining an engagement as professional at Birkenhead Park, a rich club of exclusively ex-public-school men when founded in 1846 (the first in the Wirral) and able to employ professionals to do the ‘manual work’ of bowling to members in the nets. Long before 1896, however, a major function of these professionals had come to be playing in matches. How King came to obtain a position is unknown to-day. In his time it was the club’s habit to write to Lord Hawke for a recommendation, but the Yorkshire captain was hardly likely to have known King well enough. The most suasive hypothesis is that his name was suggested by Edwin Smith who had been born at Peatling Magna, between Lutterworth and Leicester, in 1860, first played for Leicestershire in 1883 and become professional at Birkenhead the following year, thus qualifying by residence for Cheshire (for whom he scored a century against his native county). Smith, according to Birkenhead’s historian Chris Elston, ‘is said to have been the best fast bowler the club ever had’ and was one of its professionals for the whole of King’s stint there, retiring home to Leicestershire only after his benefit year of 1899. 5 Another possibility is that King was recommended to the post by the Apprenticeship 21 5 Liverpool and District played fourteen first-class matches between 1882 and 1894; Smith played in nine of these, his entire first-class career, taking 25 wickets at 19.48.