Minor Counties Championship 1908

7 regarding the qualification of players and undertook to submit any proposals forthcoming to the Minor Counties' Committee. Devon's Proposal Regarding Professionals – Devon's proposal to limit the competition to amateur cricketers was withdrawn. Close Of Meeting – A sum of five guineas was voted to the Testimonial Fund for Lord Hawke, following which hearty votes of thanks were accorded to the chairman and to Mr F E Lacey, the secretary of the MCC. Fixtures The list of fixtures for the “Second Division Championship” for the 1908 season was published in The Sportsman immediately after its account of the Annual General Meeting. That Durham had been allocated a fixture against the Gentlemen of Philadelphia starting on 24 August had already been reported. A slightly revised list was published on 18 April, where it was stated that Durham would host the tourists at Sunderland. Umpires A meeting of some of the captains and officials of the Association was held at Lord's on Thursday 12 December in order to select the umpires who would officiate in the 1908 Championship; the MCC secretary, F E Lacey was in the chair. The twelve counties that were represented were: Bedfordshire (Mr H R Orr), Berkshire (Sir C Y Nepean), Buckinghamshire (Mr W Frith Lowndes), Cambridgeshire (Major O Papworth), Dorset (Mr W Hardy Manfield), Durham (Mr T A Bulmer), Hertfordshire (Dr J Earl Norman), Lincolnshire (Mr W E Thompson), Staffordshire (Mr W C Hancock), Suffolk (Rev R Ll Hodgson), Wiltshire (Mr C S Awdry) and Yorkshire 2nd XI (Mr R W Frank). It was decided that the number of umpires should remain at twenty, with three placed in reserve. The following twenty were selected:- *T Attewell *R Barber *C E Brown *W Copeland T Cornwall *J Gregory *T H Holton C Hughes *G L R Hutchings *B W Mason *M Myers F Newman *W Pate *G Perkins *A Rudd *G J Rye *J Stevens H Walmsley *Sergeant H Willis *S Wrigley An asterisk by a name indicates that that umpire was on the list for the previous year. (Please note that Fred Rudd's full Christian name was “Alfred” rather than “Frederick”; he appears as “A Rudd” in this book and should have appeared as such in the books for 1906 and 1907.) Three umpires were listed as reserves: A F Bannister, R Head and W Hearne. Bannister (who was also a reserve for first-class matches) had been a reserve in 1907 whilst Head had been a member of the main panel. C Hughes had been promoted from the reserve list of the previous year. Apart from Head, the other men leaving the main list were W Armstrong, J Relf and O Firth (who was also listed as a reserve for first-class games for the 1908 season). Umpires are not known for 35 of the 94 matches played in 1908. Twenty-one of the twenty- three umpires on the list are known to have officiated in at least one match. The exceptions are T Attewell and C E Brown. An umpire named J Potter stood in Match 80 between Lancashire