Minor Counties Championship 1908

16 best was 9-45 against Glamorgan at Cardiff in 1905. His best match bowling was 13-93, also against Glamorgan at Cardiff in 1905. He took three wickets in four balls on two occasions. Richard (Dick as he was known) Steeples was a right-handed late order batsman and a right- arm medium fast bowler. He played 3 first-class matches for Derbyshire in 1897, scoring 20 runs at 4.00, holding 1 catch, and taking 9 wickets at 23.77, with a best of 4-73 against Nottinghamshire. At his birth he was registered Richard Steeple. His older brother, Albert, played 1 match for Derbyshire in 1899. Their father John was a coal miner. Richard played many other matches for Monmouthshire and other teams in South Wales between 1896 and 1906, his club cricket being for the Newport Athletic club. He appeared to end his career with Todmorden in the Lancashire League as their professional, playing 6 matches in 1910. He was born at Somercotes, near Alfreton in Derbyshire and also died there. E A Watts - Berkshire 1896 to 1908 (born 19 March 1872; date of death unknown) Played 85 matches for Berkshire scoring 3450 runs at 23.79 with a highest score of 130 against Oxfordshire at Reading in 1905. In later seasons he often kept wicket for the county and in total he took 99 catches and 8 stumpings. His best season was in 1904 when he took 21 catches and 4 stumpings. Ernest Arthur Watts was also a professional footballer and played for Reading, Notts County, West Ham, New Brompton, and Clapton Orient. For Reading he made 164 appearances between 1895 and 1903, scoring 6 goals. He also played in an international trial for the South in the 1902/03 season. He was born in Woolhampton, Berkshire but his date and place of death is unknown. THE BOOK The Match Scores The scores are presented in the same format as in previous books. Scorebooks exist for Durham, Glamorgan, Staffordshire, and Yorkshire 2nd XI. The Lancashire 2nd XI scorebook is believed to be a copy. Yearbooks for Surrey (1908) and Yorkshire (1909) were also referenced. As in previous years, newspapers remain the main source of information, with over sixty being consulted in researching the scores. Missing Details For Match 38 (Buckinghamshire v Berkshire at Wolverton), it has proven impossible to reconstruct satisfactory bowling figures for three of the four innings, whilst the analyses for the fourth (Buckinghamshire's first innings) add to three runs over. There were two other instances where bowling analyses did not add correctly. The matches concerned are:- Match 2 – Lincolnshire v Northumberland at Grimsby – Northumberland second innings – Lincolnshire runs conceded 1 run short Match 34 – Carmarthenshire v Glamorgan at Llanelly – Glamorgan innings – Carmarthenshire runs conceded 4 runs over. Photo: thanks to David Downs, Reading Football Club archivist