Minor Counties Championship 1913

professional engagement at Bath. He was first selected in 1895 and until 1898 he played six first-class matches for Somerset without much success and occasionally for the MCC. In 1894 he married a girl from Marlborough and that presumably prompted his move to Wiltshire and after an appearance in 1894, from 1899 he appeared regularly for the county until 1913. After the War he stood as a first-class umpire and died in Ewell Park, Surrey on 23 December 1946. L F Stedman – Monmouthshire 1897-1913 (born 18 March 1871; died 2 June 1946) Leonard Foster Stedman played 77 Championship matches for Monmouthshire scoring 765 runs at an average of 8.59, with a highest score of 42 against Berkshire at Newport in 1902. A tidy useful bowler he took 172 wickets at 22.32, three times taking five or more in an innings, with a best of 6-33 against Dorset at Poole in 1907. He also held 38 catches and captained Monmouthshire 33 times between 1897 and 1903. He played miscellaneous matches for Monmouthshire against many teams and for the MCC, the Gentlemen of Glamorgan, and for South Wales against the 1906 West Indians. He played his club cricket for Newport Athletic Club. He was born in Thurston, Suffolk on 18 March 1871 and died in Bassaleg, Newport, Monmouthshire on 2 June 1946. F G Trudgett Suffolk 1904-1913 (born 27 March 1871; died 10 January 1949) Frederick George Trudgett, known as ‘Tots’, played 64 matches for Suffolk taking 276 wickets at 17.87 with his right arm medium paced bowling. He took 5 wickets in an innings on 24 occasions, the best being 9 for 14 against Cambridgeshire at Bury St Edmunds in 1905. He and William Penfold were the mainstay of the Suffolk bowling before the First World War. He was a professional with Bishop Stortford Cricket Club in 1898 taking 94 wickets at 9.9 after which he was a professional with the Bury and West Suffolk Club. After the First World War he lived in Ipswich and worked at the Manganese Bronze and Brass Co. He was born in Bury St Edmunds and died in hospital in Ipswich. M WWright – Buckinghamshire 1895-1913 (born 24 July 1858; died 13 May 1949) Matthew William Wright, known as ‘Mat’, was born at Keyworth in Nottinghamshire in 1858, making his solitary first-class appearance for the county of his birth in 1889, and it was not until he was almost 37 that his stellar career as a minor county player began. Chosen as one of three professionals, he took part in Bucks’ inaugural match against Oxfordshire in the newly-formed Minor Counties Championship in 1895. Eighteen years later the county had played 150 Championship matches and Wright, now 55, had taken the field in 143 of them. Long hours of bowling in the nets at Eton College, where he was a coaching professional, will have honed his action in readiness for a minor county season that began in earnest after the end of school term. Wright’s partner, in the first few years, was left-armer George Nash, once of Lancashire, whose action had incurred the displeasure of Lord Harris. Together they conformed to a widespread minor county pattern whereby a pair of professionals undertook the bulk of the bowling. Frequently unchanged, in their first three seasons they sent down over 82% of the five-ball overs bowled. Though Nash was the major wicket-taker, Wright’s medium pacers bore the hallmark of economy with over half his overs maidens. When Nash was lost to the county – he died in 1903 – Wright never again enjoyed the same support, but he rose to the challenge of ensuring that one end was kept tight and his share of wickets rose. When he retired he had 812 to his name, a figure exceeded for Bucks only by the legendary Frank Edwards in the inter-war years. With a career average of 14.31, Wright took ten or more wickets in a match on 18 occasions. Seven times he captured eight in an innings, his best 8 for 27 against Carmarthenshire at Llanelli in 1911. If bowling was always his stronger suit, Wright was also a 14