MInor Counties Championship 1912

The Championship Under their new captain, Michael Falcon, Norfolk nearly had the perfect season for, after claiming a lead on the first innings in their opening fixture, they won all of their seven remaining fixtures outright and finished with a percentage of 95.00. This placed them no less than 10.00% ahead of Staffordshire, who took second place with a percentage of 85.00, winning five of their matches and claiming first innings points in another three. Unlike Norfolk, who escaped the bad weather in the regular season, Staffordshire were very unlucky with Jupiter pluvius ; rain prevented a decision being reached in no fewer than four of their twelve matches and it also badly affected two more of their games. In four of those six fixtures (two in which they claimed three points for a lead on the first innings and two in which no decision was reached) they were in a very strong position when stumps were drawn and, had the matches been played to a finish, they might have won all four and squeezed ahead of Norfolk to finish with a percentage of 96.00. Surrey 2 nd XI ended a distant third at 73.33%, winning three of the seven matches in which play actually commenced and claiming first innings points in a further two; like Norfolk and Staffordshire they did not suffer an outright defeat but, unlike the two counties who finished above them, they did concede first innings points in one game. Although their final game was completely abandoned, they were so far behind Staffordshire that even an outright win would not have taken them to second place unless the midland county ‘blew up’ in their final two matches. There was no doubting that Norfolk and Staffordshire were the finest two teams in the competition and they certainly had ‘form’; in the previous seven years Norfolk had won the title twice and Staffordshire thrice. The rest of the field were very much ‘also-rans’. Buckinghamshire finished fourth, marginally ahead of Hertfordshire whilst Durham and Northumberland tied for sixth place – all of these teams were defeated just once during the summer. Cornwall, Devon and Glamorgan also finished with percentages above 50.00. Towards the bottom of the table, Dorset failed to win any matches outright but the fact that they took the points for a first innings lead on no fewer than four occasions enabled them to finish as high as thirteenth in the table. At the very bottom of the table, Cheshire were again winless and failed even to gain any points for a lead on the first innings. Cambridgeshire and Suffolk also failed to record any victories. Before Norfolk’s final victory (against Cambridgeshire), their secretary, C B Leathes Prior, wrote to W C Hancock, his counterpart in Staffordshire, asking him, if Norfolk were to finish top of the table and Staffordshire in second place – which seemed the most likely outcome – whether the midland county would issue a challenge, as was their right given that the two counties had not met during the season. Hancock replied that his county had not done well financially that summer and could not afford to spend three days in Norfolk. However, when the two counties did indeed finish first and second, Staffordshire changed their mind and issued a challenge on 31 August. By this time the bad weather had finally reached Norfolk, causing the worst floods in living memory; a total of 11.27 inches of rain fell on Norwich in August with no less than 6.59 inches falling on 26 August alone. Unsurprisingly, chaos ensued; all communications were suspended, rail services were cancelled and no fewer than 80 bridges failed across the county as a whole. Prior replied to the challenge that ‘owing to the flood disaster and the general distress in Norfolk’ it would be impossible to meet the challenge. At first it seemed that Norfolk might have to forfeit the title but, when the secretary of the Minor Counties Association, Dr J Earl Norman, conferred with Hancock and suggested to Prior that the challenge match should take place in Stoke-on-Trent, the Norfolk secretary reacted quickly and convened a meeting of the Norfolk Committee. They proposed that they would be able to host the match after all, but not until 19 September. Hancock replied that Staffordshire would 7