Minor Counties Championship 1908

4 THE MINOR COUNTIES CHAMPIONSHIP 1908 INTRODUCTION This book contains the match scores, a statistical survey and the full averages, both by county and by player in alphabetical order, for 1908, which was the fourteenth season of the Minor Counties Championship. It follows the same format as the previous ACS publications which covered the first thirteen seasons of the competition. THE LEAD UP TO THE 1908 COMPETITION Preamble: “Cricket In 1908” An article appeared in The Sportsman on 9 December 1907 entitled “Cricket In 1908”, published under the byline of “Wanderer”, which concerned itself with the coming cricket season. Although largely concerned with first-class cricket, it also contained some important news of the Minor Counties Championship. It reported that Bedfordshire would be proposing the “elimination” from the Minor Counties Championship of the 2nd XIs of the first-class counties after the 1908 season. It was admitted that the 2nd XIs were: “financially ... a draw” but it was submitted that: “unless some definite rule can be laid down as to who constitutes a 2nd XI player it is felt that their retention under existing conditions is unsatisfactory.” “Wanderer” expressed the opinion that it was: “just on the cards [that the motion] be approved of.” It was also stated that Devon were intending to put forward a motion which would mean that only amateurs would be eligible to play in the Championship. “Wanderer” assumed that a desire to limit expenses lay behind the motion but stated that: “surely Devon is not one of the poorest [counties]?” adding that “I cannot think that this [proposition] will find favour.” The Grouping Of The Counties In The Second Division Championship “Wanderer” also remarked that: “The new system of grouping the counties would seem to have worked extremely well.” He went on to report that, for the 1908 season, “Carmarthenshire are added to the Western section and Dorset transferred from the West to the South, Worcester (2nd) dropping out.” This meant that the number of counties competing remained at 21; for the 1908 season, those 21 would be divided as follows (it will be noted that the group labelled “Midlands” for the 1907 season is now described as “South”):- NORTH (6) – Durham, *Lancashire (2nd XI) (winners in 1907), Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Staffordshire and Yorkshire (2nd XI). SOUTH (5) – Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Dorset, *Surrey (2nd XI), and Wiltshire. EAST (5) – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, *Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. WEST (5) – Carmarthenshire, Cornwall, Devon, *Glamorgan (runners up in 1907) and Monmouthshire. Asterisks denote the group winners in 1907. It was stated that group matches had to be completed by 18 August, the semi-finals by 26 August and the Championship final by 5 September. It was also reported that each county received approximately £24 as their share of the Test match profits.