Minor Counties Championship 1907

8 Umpires A meeting of some of the captains and officials of the Association was held at Lord's on Thursday 20 December in order to select the umpires who would officiate in the 1907 Championship. As with the first-class counties' meeting on the previous day, the MCC secretary, F E Lacey was in the chair. Those present were J H Brain (Glamorgan), A M Miller (Wiltshire), H R Orr (Bedfordshire), T A Bulmer (Durham), T Ainscough (Lancashire 2nd XI), F J Dupuis (Staffordshire), R W Frank and F L Nightingale (Yorkshire 2nd XI), B Abrahams (Buckinghamshire), and J Earl Norman (Hertfordshire) (honorary secretary). It was decided that the number of umpires should be reduced from twenty-seven to twenty, with four placed in reserve, preference being given to those who made themselves available for the entire season. The following twenty were selected: W Armstrong T Attewell R Barber C E Brown W Copeland O Firth J Gregory R Head T H Holton G L R Hutchings B W Mason M Myers W Pate G Perkins J Relf F Rudd G J Rye J Stevens Sergeant H Willis S Wrigley The five newcomers were W Armstrong, R Head, W Pate, J Relf and S Wrigley. The four supernumerary umpires were: A F Bannister (who had stood in at least one match the previous year despite not being among those selected to officiate), C Hughes, C H Mills and R Rogers. The twelve leaving the main list were C E Bartram, H Coulson, W Griffiths, G P Harrison, W Hearne, C Hughes, R Humphrey, D J Jennings, C Marshall, C H Mills, R Rogers, A Stockwin. Umpires are not known for 39 of the 93 matches played in 1907. Twenty of the twenty-four umpires on the list are known to have officiated in at least one match. The exceptions are M Myers, C Hughes, C H Mills and R Rogers. An umpire named H Baldwin stood in Match 76 between Staffordshire and Durham at Stoke-on-Trent, despite not being on either the main or the supernumerary list. It is possible that this was Harry Baldwin, the bowler from Hampshire who had recently retired. THE 1907 MINOR COUNTIES CHAMPIONSHIP The Counties Involved Oxfordshire dropped out from the list of Counties who played in 1906, [See page 191 of 1906 Book for details] whilst Lincolnshire and Worcestershire 2nd XI joined the competition; the former had played in four matches that counted as Championship matches for their opponents in 1895 [See page 73 of 1895 Book] whilst Worcestershire's first-team had been promoted to the first-class County Championship after the 1898 season [See page 106 of 1898 Book]. This meant that there was an increase in the number of teams to twenty-one, the highest number yet seen. This year, for the first time, the Championship was organised into four divisions, as listed above on page 7.