"as an ""exceedingly fashionable"" sport was its popularity, handed down through generations from old boys to new boys, in the fee-paying (""public"") schools. Even so, headmasters of the time were not convinced that inter-school rivalry was a good thing and, when Eton played Harrow at Lord's in 1805, the match was organised by the boys themselves, among them Lord Byron. Like everything else, cricket struggled as the Napoleonic Wars wore on and very few matches were played when the conflict escalated from 1810 to 1814. MCC were accused by some critics of not providing leadership or vision but in fact"
"– Charterhouse, Rugby, Westminster and Winchester. The schools were early adopters of cricket caps: Eton (light blue) and Winchester (blue) in 1851, and Harrow (striped) in 1852, followed by Cambridge (1861) and Oxford (1863). The first Eton-Harrow match in 1805 preceded by one year the first Gentlemen v Players in 1806. Charles Wordsworth, nephew of William Wordsworth, played for Harrow in the four matches in 1822 to 1825, and arranged the first University Match at Lord's in 1827, two years before the first Boat Race. Many Eton and Harrow players went on to win blues at Oxford and Cambridge. Eton"
"""Life of Samuel Johnson"". A comment by Horace Walpole confirms that cricket was being played at Eton during the first quarter of the 18th century. The earliest reference to cricket being played at Cambridge University is dated 1710 and both of those establishments were attended by William Goldwin who, in 1706, wrote a Latin poem of 95 lines on a rural cricket match. It was called ""In Certamen Pilae"" (On a Ball Game) and it was published in his ""Musae Juveniles"". It was during the second half of the 17th century that, as Roy Webber put it, ""the game took"
"the best two in England"" and so one of them is believed to have been William Sawyer. In 1740, a combined Richmond and Moulsey team played two matches against London. The first was incomplete due to rain and the second was won by London. In 1742, Richmond played London at the Artillery Ground ""for a considerable sum"" but the result is unknown. The poet James Love, well known in cricket circles for his ""Cricket: An Heroic Poem"" (1744), was a playing member of the Richmond club but probably the greatest ever Richmond player was his teammate, the innkeeper William Sawyer."
"Eton v Harrow The Eton v Harrow cricket match is an annual match between Eton College and Harrow School. It is one of the longest-running annual sporting fixtures in the world and the only annual school cricket match still to be played at Lord's. Cricket was being played by teams at English public schools by the time of the English Commonwealth. Horace Walpole entered Eton in 1726, and later wrote that playing cricket was a common occurrence at the school. Westminster School played matches against Eton at Tothill Fields in the 1790s. By the early 19th century, cricket was well"
"Ellis Whately Ellis George Whately (27 July 1882 – 4 September 1969) played first-class cricket for Oxford University and Somerset between 1902 and 1905. He was born in Kensington, London and died at Chelsea, London. Whately was educated at Eton College where he played in the cricket team in 1900 and 1901 as a right-handed middle-order batsman and a right-arm off-spin bowler. In the Eton v Harrow match of 1900 at Lord's, he took three Harrow wickets in the first innings and five in the second, including a hat-trick. In 1901 he was Eton's captain and scored 45 and 40"
"""the champion of the centuries"", although he had still not scored one in 1878. The opening (and closing) verse of the poem is the most famous stanza ever written about cricket and it eulogised two Lancashire players who were widely known as ""Monkey"" (AN Hornby) and ""Stonewaller"" (Dick Barlow). The match was played over three days and culminated in a draw on Saturday, 27 July. Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat, but were dismissed for only 89 after rain shortened the first day's play. Grace took 3–44 and the left arm spinner Robert Miles took 7–38. Gloucestershire responded"
"Blackpool, and is buried in Layton Cemetery. On his tombstone is inscribed 'bowled at last'. Dick Barlow Richard ""Dick"" Gorton Barlow (28 May 1851 – 31 July 1919) was a cricketer who played for Lancashire and England. Barlow will be best remembered for his batting partnership with A N Hornby, which was immortalised in nostalgic poetry by Francis Thompson. He was also an umpire and a football referee, including at the record 26–0 score between Preston North End and Hyde in the FA Cup. Cricket was engrained in Barlow from an early age, and he went on to play for"
"for 69. Barlow was also a good bowler with much variation. According to a (possibly apochryphal) story related by Alan Gibson, Barlow was working as a railway porter when Hornby first encountered him. Hornby happened to see him batting against the bowling of the station-master, and asked if he might have a bowl himself. ""Ay, do,"" was the reply. ""He's been in for a fortnight."" Barlow is immortalised in one of the best-known pieces of cricket poetry, a poem called ""At Lord's"" by Francis Thompson. In it Thompson remembers back watching Barlow and A N Hornby play for Lancashire through"
"Cricket poetry The game of cricket has inspired much poetry, most of which romanticises the sport and its culture. Francis Thompson wrote the following poem, ""At Lord's"": Not long before his death and long after he had watched Hornby and Barlow bat at Old Trafford, Thompson was invited to watch Lancashire play Middlesex at Lord's. As the day of the match grew closer, Thompson became increasingly nostalgic. At the end, he did not go for the match, but sat at home and wrote ""At Lord's"". The original match in 1878 ended in a draw, with Gloucestershire needing 111 to win"
"upon amateurs, which led to problems; although they were happy to play at Old Trafford, they were less willing to travel to away fixtures. During the early 1870s, the team was dominated by A. N. Hornby’s batting. The team's standard of cricket improved with the arrival of two professional players, Dick Barlow and Alex Watson. The impact of Barlow and Hornby was such that their batting partnership was immortalised in the poem ""At Lord’s "" by Francis Thompson. The team was further enhanced by A. G. Steel, an amateur sometimes considered second only to W. G. Grace as the country's"
"playing days, one was George Hirst, who coached at Eton for 18 years from 1921. Eton v Harrow The Eton v Harrow cricket match is an annual match between Eton College and Harrow School. It is one of the longest-running annual sporting fixtures in the world and the only annual school cricket match still to be played at Lord's. Cricket was being played by teams at English public schools by the time of the English Commonwealth. Horace Walpole entered Eton in 1726, and later wrote that playing cricket was a common occurrence at the school. Westminster School played matches against"
"these lines: The Australian poet Les Murray wrote ""The Aboriginal Cricketer"": One of the most famous pieces of nostalgic rose-tinted poems is Vitai Lampada by Sir Henry Newbolt. The very short """"A Cricket Poem"""" by Harold Pinter encapsulates the mood and nostalgia common to lovers of cricket: Andrew Lang's cricketing parody of Ralph Waldo Emerson's ""Brahma"" is memorable: Roy Harper's song ""When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease"" (1975) is perhaps the best-known cricket lyric in contemporary popular music: Roy Harper also penned a poem for English cricketer Graeme Fowler's benefit event. ""Three Hundred Words"". Australian poet Damian Balassone often"
"Eton v Harrow match. Neither his batting nor his bowling style is known. He made his first-class cricket debut while still at school by appearing in a match for the Gentlemen of England against a Gentlemen of Kent team in August 1848. He played regularly for Cambridge University from 1850 to 1852, appearing three times in the University Match against Oxford University and captaining the side in his final year. That 1852 University Match provided him with his best first-class bowling figures: he took three wickets, though the full bowling analysis has not survived, and his personal success was insufficient"
"employs cricket themes, such as in the poem 'Strange Dismissal' which appears in Quadrant: Albert Craig, better known as ""The Surrey Poet"" was a popular figure at The Oval at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, hawking his rapidly improvised verses to the crowd. Of Jack Hobbs' County Championship debut he wrote: Lord Beginner sings Victory Calypso At Lord's in 1950, West Indies defeated England in England for the first time. Egbert Moore, who sang under the pseudonym Lord Beginner, popularized the most famous of cricketing calypsos to celebrate the occasion. He was accompanied by"
"East Lancashire Club, Blackburn and he was first tried for Lancashire County Cricket Club in 1867. It was with his county that he was to play his finest cricket. He went on to play for Lancashire for 33 years, 17 as captain (in 1879–1893 and 1897–1898). For many years he provided an ideal attacking foil to the careful defence of his opening partner, Dick Barlow, with whom he was immortalised in one of the best known of all cricket poems, ""At Lord's"" by Francis Thompson which contains the following lines: <poem> </poem> His lack of stature and excess of energy"
"for their school, including Charles Lyttelton (later 10th Viscount Cobham), Wykeham Cornwallis (later 2nd Baron Cornwallis), Nigel Haig and Denis Hill-Wood. The match has included fifteen players from Eton and six from Harrow who later played for the England national cricket team, most recently Nick Compton (Harrow) in Tests and Matthew Fleming (Eton) in ODIs. In recent years, few players have gone on to become professionals in first-class cricket, exceptions being Nick Compton, Gary Ballance and Sam Northeast (Harrow), and Jamie Bruce and Alex Loudon (both Eton). Amongst the cricketers who became the coach at Eton or Harrow after their"
"family firm in Sevenoaks was nationally known as an amateur cricketer of some note, playing in matches for Hampshire and Kent. Although Byron left Harrow in 1805, he continued to visit the school regularly, staying with Henry Drury, his former tutor, with whom Claridge boarded. Over a dozen letters from Claridge to Byron survive in the John Murray Archive and cover a period from 1808 to 1811. In them there are strong hints that the poet exerted a powerful attraction on the youth who expresses his love for Byron in unequivocal terms. Claridge stayed at Newstead over Easter 1809 and"
"when he became the Headmaster of Rugby School. In 1647, a Latin poem by Robert Matthew contains a probable reference to cricket being played by pupils of Winchester College on nearby St Catherine’s Hill. If authentic, this is the earliest known mention of cricket in the county of Hampshire. At one time Winchester was one of the Lord's schools, competing in a trilateral cricket tournament with Eton and Harrow; and for this reason the first cricket eleven is still known as ""Lords"" (with or without the apostrophe). Since 1855 Winchester has not taken part in this, instead playing Eton alternately"
"song-making. The account is mainly of the field cricket, but also mentions the Italian cricket. Crickets have from time to time appeared in poetry. William Wordsworth's 1805 poem ""The Cottager to Her Infant"" includes the couplet ""The kitten sleeps upon the hearth, The crickets long have ceased their mirth"". John Keats's 1819 poem ""Ode to Autumn"" includes the lines ""Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft / The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft"". The Chinese Tang dynasty poet Du Fu (712–770) wrote a poem that in the translation by J. P. Seaton begins ""House cricket ... Trifling thing. And yet"
"Eton v Harrow cricket matches of 1832 and 1833. As a cricketer, he played as a lower-middle-order batsman and he also took a wicket in two of his three first-class matches, though full figures for his games are not available, and he may have taken more; his best batting, an innings of 27 which was the top score for his team, came in his first match for Cambridge University against the Cambridge Town Club. Walter Kavanagh (cricketer) Walter Kavanagh (20 March 1814 – 19 June 1836) was an Irish cricketer who played in three first-class cricket matches for Cambridge University"
"Dick Barlow Richard ""Dick"" Gorton Barlow (28 May 1851 – 31 July 1919) was a cricketer who played for Lancashire and England. Barlow will be best remembered for his batting partnership with A N Hornby, which was immortalised in nostalgic poetry by Francis Thompson. He was also an umpire and a football referee, including at the record 26–0 score between Preston North End and Hyde in the FA Cup. Cricket was engrained in Barlow from an early age, and he went on to play for Lancashire for 20 years and continued to play at lower levels into his sixties. He"
"at the ground. The most famous first-class match held on the ground came in 1877 when Oxford University played the Marylebone Cricket Club. Oxford, winning the toss and deciding to bat were dismissed for 12 for in 43.2 four ball over, which remains the second lowest first-class score of all time. Fred Morley, who later represented England took 7/6 and in the second innings 6/8 for the Marylebone Cricket Club, which remains the most outstanding match analysis of all time. The poet Arnold Rylott took the other two wickets to fall in the first innings, whilst Robert Clayton shared the"
"rose-tinted glasses. The first verse of the poem, which is repeated as the final verse is the best known: <poem> </poem> Barlow took part in the original Ashes match and is commemorated by the poem pasted on the side of The Ashes urn: <poem> </poem> Barlow played seven times for England against Australia in England: in the match which gave rise to the Ashes at the Oval in 1882; and at Lord's, the Oval, and Old Trafford in 1884 and 1886. He made no big score in these matches, but his partnership with Allan Steel was the turning point of"
"Brent on Wed 29 July 1752. William Hodsoll William Hodsoll (1718; christened 28 October 1718 at Ash-next-Ridley, Kent – 30 November 1776 at Ash-next-Ridley), was a noted English cricketer of the mid-Georgian period. Hodsoll lived at Dartford for some years and was a tanner. According to the description of him in ""Cricket, An Heroic Poem"" (1745) by James Love, Hodsoll was a fast (underarm) bowler and also a useful batsman. This poem was written to commemorate the famous match between Kent and All-England at the Artillery Ground in 1744, in which Hodsoll played for Kent. Hodsoll's last recorded appearance was"
"cricket match was held at Lord's on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 July 1910. He was one of only three survivors from Eton's 1909 team, but Harrow had seven veterans from the 1909 match and came to the match unbeaten. Before the match, The Times noted that Harrow's captain Guy Earle ""bowls extraordinarily fast for a boy"" but that ""is not deadly on a good wicket, but can make every use of a difficult one"". Also playing in the match was a schoolboy who would become a field-marshal (Alexander), another an air vice-marshal (Blount), and a third an attorney-general (Monckton),"
"English cricket season. Later that season, he played for All-England against Kent in the famous match at the Artillery Ground. These two games have the earliest known scorecards. Aburrow continued to play until at least the 1751 English cricket season. He is frequently found in single wicket contests and seems to have been very popular with the gamblers who frequented that form of cricket. Edward Aburrow Sr. Edward Aburrow senior (baptized at Hambledon, Hampshire 25 Jan 1714/1715, buried at Slindon, Sussex 25 Apr 1763 ) was a noted English cricketer of the mid-18th century. He was a Sussex man, who"
"Whitehead, it turns out, is more interested in cricket. Whitehead takes Reggie along to the match, in time to see Sam get out for a duck. The England cricketers Len Hutton, Denis Compton, Alec Bedser, Godfrey Evans, Jim Laker and Cyril Washbrook appear as themselves with John Arlott providing the match commentary. The writer Terence Rattigan was an excellent cricketer in his school days. He played opening batsman for the Harrow Eleven, often in partnership with Victor Rothschild, and in 1929 he represented Harrow at Lord's in the annual match against Eton College. He originally wrote ""The Final Test"" -"
"fatally wounded while serving in Mesopotamia. A short poem of his, titled ""Lines by Captain Alexander Gordon Cowie, Seaforth Highlanders"", appeared after his death in ""The Lotus Magazine"" and has since been anthologized in books of war poetry. Alexander Cowie Alexander Gordon Cowie (27 February 1889 – 7 April 1916) was an English first-class cricketer, soldier and poet. Cowie was educated at Charterhouse School and Caius College, Cambridge. A tall, strongly built right-arm fast bowler who could bowl ""alarmingly fast"", he made his first-class debut for Cambridge University in 1910 and was awarded his blue. He made nine first-class appearances"
"with five wickets in hand, Grace 58* The first stanza of the poem has contributed the titles of at least three books on cricket: The first stanza is also quoted in full by Count Bronowsky in Paul Scott's Raj Quartet novel, The Day of the Scorpion. The satirical magazine ""Punch"" printed the following poem following a particularly slow and boring innings by William Scotton. It mimicked Tennyson's famous ""Break, break, break"". When Alfred Mynn died in 1861, William Jeffrey Prowse penned a poem in his memory. The first six stanzas compare Mynn with his contemporaries and the poem closes with"
"versus Harrow cricket match in 1824. In 1824 he was offered a post in the Indian civil service, and went for a short time to Haileybury College, where he did well in Oriental languages. Deciding against an Indian career, he went up to St John's College, Cambridge in 1826. Among other distinctions he came out as fourth classic in 1830, and in 1833 was elected fellow of St John's. He was a member of the Apostles' Club, his fellow-members including Tennyson, A. H. Hallam, Monckton Milnes, W. H. Thompson, Trench and James Spedding. Merivale was the main protagonist on the"
"Institute in Leeds and the terracotta remains in the collection of the artist. Dennis Silk Dennis Raoul Whitehall Silk (born 8 October 1931) is a former first-class cricketer and schoolmaster. He was also a close friend of the poet Siegfried Sassoon, about whom he has spoken and written extensively. Silk was born in Eureka, California. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he gained an MA in History and represented Cambridge University at cricket. A useful opener or middle-order batsman, he scored centuries in the matches against Oxford University in 1953 and 1954, and captained"
"of Harrow School aged 17), Henry J. Preston (also Eton College, aged 19) and Walpole Vidal (Westminster School, aged 17). The match was played at the Kennington Oval on 19 November 1870 and ended in a 1–0 victory to the English, with the solitary goal coming from R.S.F. Walker. Although nominally playing as a defender, Carter had a goal disallowed. Nothing is known about Carter's life after leaving Eton College in 1871, until his death from a lightning strike in the Transvaal, South Africa on 16 November 1879. Thomas Nevile Carter Thomas Nevile Carter (September 1851 – 16 November 1879)"