Teresa McLean was the first woman to win a cricket Blue for both Oxford and Cambridge. From the preface to The Men in White Coats (1987).
I HAVE LOVED CRICKET since I was three years old. I used to sit on the back doorstep in the sun, helping my older brother oil his bat before playing family cricket on the lawn. Umpiring decisions in these games were made by a parliamentary hierarchy in which my parents, when we could persuade them to play, were the House of Lords and my brother, sister and I the Commons. Umpires’ decisions represented the survival of the fittest and, occasionally, the triumph of authority.
My experience of umpiring since then has confirmed that impression, with the balance in favour of authority but not so far in its favour that bullying, arguing and battering by appeal are rendered futile. As I went to a school that was starved of cricket, I saw few official, card-carrying umpires until I was eighteen, except those who officiated at village matches, and at the one or two matches I watched at my brother’s school. These last provided me with my first sight of serious umpires, dressed for the job and looking remote, unlike our village umpires, who smiled and made faces as they fought out decisions with the opposition.
Umpires soon became objects of fascination, and I watched Syd Buller umpire Test matches almost as keenly as I watched Ted Dexter bat, Fred Trueman bowl and John Murray keep wicket. One part of Syd Buller’s charisma for me came from the fact that as an umpire he was by definition mysterious. Another part came from the trappings of his job – the long white coat with the sleeves rolled up to reveal sunburnt arms – and another part of it came from the inscrutable face topped by that central parting at which I never stopped marvelling, every hair on either side of it lying short and flat, perfectly in place.
Though I only ever saw Syd Buller on television, I knew at the time that I would never forget him. He stood out from the silent throng of his umpiring contemporaries, splendid though they were, as the essence of English first-class umpiring. I wasn’t at all surprised, though horribly saddened, when I heard that he had died only minutes after coming off the field for rain in the County Championship match between Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire at Edgbaston in August 1970. I had always thought he would die in the middle of a game.
Buller notwithstanding, it would be wrong to pretend that umpires interested me as much as players. They fascinated me, as they still do today, but they were not, are not and never will be exciting. They are not there to be. A raised finger is not as enjoyable to watch as a cover drive, though it is usually more important. There would be something wrong if umpires were exciting. They are more like mute gods than film stars, and the more they imprint their personality on the game the more I feel uneasy about them.
My interest in cricket became really serious in the ‘quiet umpires’ era of the 1950s and 1960s, when Buller was the sovereign of unobtrusive authority. I did not get a glimpse of a ‘character umpire’ above village cricket level until I went to Oxford in 1969 when, having joined the University Women’s Cricket Club just for fun, I was amazed to find myself chosen to play for them.
The standard of skill was abysmal and my knockabout games in the garden at home were enough to get me a fairly regular place in the team. More than that, being a potential female Botham with a talent for trouble, I was chosen to play in the Varsity match. Writing this now, I am ashamed to say that I cannot remember how the game turned out, but I rather think we won. I remember most things about it vividly, including the weather, the setting, the way I was out (run out) and the umpires.
We played in pouring rain on a pitch lent us by one of the men’s colleges, miles down the Botley Road. It was more of a meadow than a cricket field, though it did have something approaching a pavilion – a grim little shed in which we sheltered when lightning stopped play. We did not have a set uniform and wore whites which ranged from jeans to shorts and, horror of horrors, divided skirts. There was nothing to distinguish Oxford from Cambridge, and team identity depended on us knowing each other.
I reckoned my forte was my unusual spin bowling, but my captain unwisely ignored this hidden talent and left me out of the bowling attack, so it was up to my batting to vindicate my selection. I went in at number seven. The storm was immediately overhead, with thunder cracking round the ground, and we had nearly got the total we were chasing. There was no point hanging around: I launched some uninhibited shots, made a quick little clutch of runs, then was run out when I slipped in the mud attempting a suicidal run.
The umpire, I remember, stood in the rain with his collar up, shook his head and said ‘Out!’ As I walked past him he added, ‘Silly girl.’ As far as I was concerned, coming from an umpire who looked authoritative, had the keys to the shed, was a man, and was standing in the Varsity match, that was ‘character umpiring’. It made a deep impression on me.
Cricket then was even more sexist than it is today, difficult though that might be to imagine. We almost always played men’s teams because there were hardly any women’s teams. Once we played a prep school about fifteen miles outside Oxford and it was peculiarly humiliating to be given out by a small, spotty boy. Thank heavens there is genuine women’s first-class cricket today, with women umpiring. Maybe one day I will be able to fulfil my ambition, though I know it is only a dream, to umpire a Test match.
[. . .] I went to ACU evening classes to learn to qualify as an umpire.
The classes were in a school gym miles out along one of the minor roads of West Oxford, which was where I lived; I had gone back there [after a spell at Cambridge] to teach. They were extremely well taught by an exact and dedicated man, the model fanatical umpire, but I had not expected thirty people to turn up week after week to listen to his talks, look at the ground plans he drew on his blackboard and the little magnetic feet he moved about on a magnetic sketch of a pitch to explain no-ball decisions.
At the end of an eight-week term came the exams, set each year by the Association of Cricket Umpires. There were two levels of examination, depending on the grade of game one wanted to umpire. The easier one would have qualified me to umpire local club and village matches, but I had big ideas and opted for the harder exam, which would qualify me to umpire any level of match, right up to Test match standard, subject to the usual requirements of experience and performance. I was the only woman who took the harder exam and one of only two women who took either.
I passed, the exam having an 80 per cent passmark, and the following year, when I married and moved back to Cambridge, I started to umpire for the East Anglian club circuit. My first game was ghastly. I was nervous, and was alternately showered with abuse and advice by the men over whom I was supposed to be asserting my authority. My authority anyway was minimal, regarded sceptically by the players and going from weak to moribund with every bad and hesitant decision I made. I gave one particularly unpleasant little man run out: he was out by a good four yards.
He stood staring at me and said, ‘Are you seriously trying to give me out?’
When I said I was, he retorted, ‘Well, I’m not going.’
I looked at my watch and told him he had two minutes to get off the field and let the next man in: they were ticking away. Thank God, he went. I had no idea what I’d have done had he refused, and I decided umpiring was one of the most unpleasant jobs in the world. In future I would have as little to do with it as possible.
Dickie Dodds was an opening batsman who played for Essex from 1946 to 1959.
From Hit Hard and Enjoy It (1976).
BEFORE THE FIRST World War, Worcestershire had a very promising young batsman called Frank Chester. During the subsequent hostilities he was wounded and lost his right arm – and thereby his capacity to follow the career that had begun with such high hopes. But Frank was a young man of character, and he turned to umpiring. Soon he became one of the best umpires in the country and, finally, was universally acclaimed as the best in the world.
It was easy to recognise Frank Chester on the field. His lean figure was always well and neatly dressed and topped by a trilby hat, and his dummy left hand was encased in a dark leather glove.
Frank stood in my first county game. I sensed his appraising eye on me, as it was on all new players. He was rather like a connoisseur of wine, savouring a new vintage. ‘Who’s this feller?’ he would ask an old player. I am told he would always try and give encouragement to a beginner. At any rate, I seemed to pass his inspecting eye in that first match, and he said some kind words.
Perhaps because, in his playing days, he had made his highest score against Essex (178 not out, including four sixes off opening bowler J. W. H. T. Douglas), he always liked to stand in our home games – especially those at the sea. We enjoyed having him, and were forever trying to catch him out on the field. But you had to get up early to catch Frank. We only once succeeded – or thought we did!
The common or garden trick of coming out after an interval and trying to start to bowl from the same end as the one from which you bowled the last over before the interval never had a hope with Frank. However, one day we thought we had a winner. It was a hot afternoon at Westcliff. The match was in a moribund state. Ray Smith, who was always the moving spirit in these affairs, suggested that sometime in the middle of the afternoon he would run up to bowl and go right over the bowling crease to the batting crease, as though he was going to bowl from there. Frank would then call ‘no ball’, but Ray would not have released the ball – and at last the great man would have made a mistake. The moment came. The signal was given to let us all in on the fun. Ray ran straight past the wicket and he, and we, were all waiting for Frank’s roar. Nothing happened. Ray finally just had to let the ball go. Had Frank nodded off, or had some sixth sense told him of our plot? Anyway, when Ray ran up to bowl his next ball, which was quite legitimate, we were all startled to hear a raucous ‘No ball’ come from Umpire Chester! Although afterwards we claimed we had him, he made a counter claim. At this distance in time, I think I would declare Frank the winner.
Frank Chester was a Test umpire from 1924 to 1955, standing in a then record number of forty-eight Tests. From How’s That! (1956).
‘Alec’ is his fellow umpire Alec Skelding.
I BELIEVE IT WAS Alec who told me the story of the keen cricketing squire who had his ‘own’ umpire – his butler, in fact. All appeals against the master were flatly refused. After fourteen demands for lbw and a few more catches behind the wicket had been rejected the opposing side were becoming rather exasperated and the skipper instructed one of his bowlers to send down a slow high-flighted full toss.
With a glint in his eye the squire walked down the wicket, missed the ball completely and was yards out of his ground when the wicket-keeper gathered the ball. Even the squire smiled as the wicket-keeper turned to the butler-cum-umpire and demanded, ‘What chance have I got now?’
Another village cricket story is of the batsman who arrived at the crease wearing only one pad – and that on his right leg. Assuming he was a lefthander, the field changed around. But no, he batted right-handed and three times in the first over was hit painfully on the unprotected leg. ‘Why don’t you change the pad to your left leg?’ asked the wicket-keeper. ‘That’s no use now; I shall be batting at the other end in the next over,’ came the reply.
In March 1950 I went to Rottingdean Cricket Club’s annual dinner in Sussex and occupied a humble place in the ‘speakers’ batting order’, which included Sir Noel Curtis-Bennett, Sir Leslie Bowker and Arthur Gilligan. Sir Noel told of visiting the back streets of a London district and finding a small boy, wet, weeping and thoroughly miserable. Sir Noel lifted him off the ground to console him, whereupon another small boy in a piping voice demanded: ‘Hi, guv, what yer doing wiv ’im? Put ’im dahn – ’e’s our wicket.’
The opening batsman arrived at the crease in a charity match and before giving him guard I turned to the bowler with the usual question, ‘Over or around the wicket?’ He looked somewhat surprised and went on rolling up his sleeves menacingly and vigorously exercising himself, so I repeated, ‘Do you bowl over or around the wicket?’
It was then my turn to be surprised, for he gave me a pitying look and thundered, ‘No – at the wicket, of course.’
One of my most frequent partners in 1924 was Bill Reeves, of Essex, whose cockney wit earned him a reputation as cricket’s comedian.
At Swansea, against Hampshire, Glamorgan introduced a lanky medium-fast bowler obviously keen to do well and very, very green. After a few good overs he beat the bat and appealed for lbw. ‘Not out,’ decided Reeves, who at the end of the over whispered in the lad’s ear: ‘Look, son, when you appeal to an umpire in county cricket don’t say “How’s that”. Say “How’s that, sir”. You’ll stand a better chance.’ The bowler nodded as though understanding why his previous appeal had been disallowed. A little later he rapped the pad again and roared, ‘How’s that?’ adding respectfully, ‘Sir.’ Raising his index finger, Reeves said with a knowing wink, ‘Ah, that’s better.’
At Leicester bad light stopped play; the clouds were so low that it was almost dark and it should have been obvious to everyone why the players were trooping off the field. But a fussy little man ran up to Reeves and demanded, ‘What have you come in for?’ Placing his hand over his eyes in an exaggerated gesture and gazing up at the clouds, Reeves replied, ‘We cannot stand the glare.’ Far from being rebuffed, the little man thanked Bill politely and withdrew to his seat!
After the blank Test at Manchester in 1938 Jack Hobbs met Reeves leaving the Secretary’s office, where he had been collecting his fees. ‘Good heavens,’ said Jack, ‘surely you are not going to take money for being idle for the past four days; you haven’t done a stroke.’
‘I’m going to give the money to charity,’ Bill replied.
‘Charity?’ repeated Jack in genuine surprise.
‘Yes,’ said Bill, striding away, ‘– to the Unknown Warrior’s widow.’
Cecil Parkin was bowling at Reeves’s end during a Battle of the Roses and appealed for lbw against Herbert Sutcliffe. At square-leg I could see the ball was far too high, but Parkin enquired, ‘What was the matter with that?’
‘Too high,’ answered Bill.
In his next over Parkin hit Percy Holmes in the stomach and with considerable optimism again appealed. Reeves shook his head.
‘Well, what was the matter with that one?’ Parkin demanded.
‘Too low,’ came the solemn reply.
In another Lancashire v. Yorkshire match it was a near thing for Herbert Sutcliffe going for a quick run. ‘Why didn’t you give him out?’ demanded a couple of the Lancashire players. ‘Well,’ said Bill sadly, ‘he’s got his old granddad here; come 150 miles to see him bat. You don’t think I was going to upset the poor old man’s day, do you?’
A young Lancs pro sat very disconsolately in the Pavilion after Reeves had given him leg before. At the luncheon interval Bill went up to him and said: ‘Don’t look like that; you weren’t out really.’
‘Why did you give me out then?’ demanded the boy.
Bill replied: ‘Well, the ground’s a bit wet and I was thinking of your rheumatics. What would your poor old mother have said to me?’
Before a Surrey match Reeves said to me: ‘Frank, do me a favour – go Alf Gover’s end. The last match I had with him he was a nuisance; he bowled so many no-balls I had a sore throat.’ I went Alf’s end and Bill looked very happy when I called ‘No Ball’ a few times. The wind changed right round and it was decided to switch Alf to Reeves’s end. When Bill saw him taking off his sweater he went down on one knee and pretended to pray.
In another game at The Oval both batsmen floundered half way down the pitch trying to steal a hurried single. They ran together to my end and then a couple of times up and down the wicket, still together, as the ball was overthrown. Reeves was almost on the ground laughing when the wicket was broken at his end with both batsmen out of the crease. ‘Blowed if I know who’s out; it will have to be the toss of a coin,’ said Bill. He tossed up the coin and gave one of the men out, but I told him it was irregular and that he must give a considered decision. After a while we were able to work out who was the rightly-dismissed batsman.
Reeves was certainly the most refreshing character I met on a cricket ground; players and officials thought the world of him. When he arrived for a match he would go into the dressing-room and say: ‘Good morning, you chaps. Just one word of advice – keep your pins out of the road. I’m in the mood.’
He was playing for Essex when Tommy Oates, of Nottinghamshire, became an umpire. During an M.C.C. match Oates was standing at Reeves’s end, who was bowling. There was a snick to the wicket-keeper and Oates, from force of habit, shouted, excitedly, ‘How’s that?’
Without a second’s hesitation Reeves lifted his finger in the approved manner and said, ‘Out.’ And the batsman walked, quite satisfied!
Several wicket-keepers find difficulty in overcoming the appealing habit when they have laid down their gauntlets. Jack Board, of Gloucestershire, in an Oval match during his first season as an umpire, roared at the top of his voice for a catch at the wicket and gave the batsman out at the same time!
Leslie Ames, the best wicket-keeping batsman of his generation, was batting at The Oval in a Test Match when he appealed as loudly as anyone against his batting partner for an obvious catch behind the wicket. ‘What,’ I chided, ‘– shouting against your own team?’
‘Did I shout?’ he asked in surprise, and he could hardly credit his subconscious action.
The Hampshire team just before and after the First World War were renowned for their cheerfulness. Jack Newman and George Brown were always having fun. They were at Lord’s and by six o’clock Middlesex had piled up a huge total, so Lord Tennyson decided to put himself on. As his Lordship began to measure out a long run Brown, the wicket-keeper, watched with interest. After twelve paces had been counted Brown suddenly turned on his heel and walked towards the boundary. By the time Lord Tennyson was ready to bowl Brown had taken up his position a yard in front of the sightscreen at the Nursery end. Lord Tennyson’s face was a study and the whole Hampshire team, even though leg-weary and dispirited after a hot day’s leather-chasing, roared with laughter.
Brown was as tough as teak and very often deliberately played a fast bowler’s bumper with his body. I have seen him breast the ball away as if he were clad in mail. He did not realize that his toughness diminished with age and towards the end of his career was facing the swift Gordon Hodgson from Lancashire at Portsmouth. Hodgson was staggered when he saw Brown twice do his breastplate act and commented, ‘He’s a tough ’un, isn’t he?’
When Brown came to my end the next over he collapsed to the ground. Brandy revived him and rubbing his chest he said simply, ‘Don’t think I’ll do it again.’
Jack Newman, a fine all-rounder who was most unlucky not to be selected for England, was a character beloved by all. His sole hobby was an innocent little flutter on the horses.
In 1925 Hampshire were at The Oval on the day of the Jubilee Race and I passed on to Jack a tip given me by two trainers – Amethystine, which won at 20 to 1. He came in to bat soon after the race result had been declared and as he passed me said, ‘Amethystine’s won all right.’ The first ball he received from Peach I had to give him out lbw. I learned during the tea interval that he returned to the Pavilion saying, ‘That ruddy fool Chester is so excited at Amethystine’s win that he can’t see straight.’ It was a black day for Jack – out first ball and not backing a winning tip. Nor did I, for that matter!
Newman suffered from lapses of concentration. He batted extremely well at Northampton and when he took a single to complete his 50 there was a warm round of applause in which he himself joined.
I said, ‘It’s you they’re clapping, Jack.’ He awoke with a start. ‘Good heavens, what am I thinking about?’ he said, and belatedly raised his cap to the applauding crowd.
He was a dangerous bowler, varying his medium pace with off-spinners and occasionally slipping in an extra-fast one. At Old Trafford he was bowling from my end to Lancashire’s Dick Tyldesley when he decided that Philip Mead was too deep at first slip. Jack called down the wicket, ‘Come up, Phil, I’m not Larwood.’ Mead obliged. Three balls later Jack let loose his faster one and it sped off the edge on to Mead’s knee-cap, knocking him over. Mead passed not a few observations on bowlers in general and one in particular.
Two overs later Mead was again caught standing too deep and again Newman persuaded him to move closer to the bat. In due course the faster one was again unleashed. This time it flew off Tyldesley’s bat on to Mead’s temple and he was knocked clean out. When Mead regained consciousness Newman was standing over him offering profuse apologies. Mead’s reply cannot be recorded!
Charlie Harris, the comedian of the Notts dressing-room, was a bowler before he established himself as Walter Keeton’s opening partner, and when Notts were at their wits’ end to dismiss Philip Mead he volunteered to turn his arm over. Phil was slowly yet surely nearing a double century and Harris, in that pseudo-serious way of his, warned me, ‘As soon as I hit him I’m going to appeal.’ Much to my surprise he did beat Philip’s broad blade and strike his pad. Harris leapt with glee and bellowed an appeal, but he was so excited that his dentures shot out on to the wicket!
‘What are you trying to do – bite me out?’ cracked Mead.
I believe George Mobey, the Surrey wicket-keeper, had a similar experience at Derby, and mention of Surrey keepers reminds me of how Ted Brooks had his leg pulled after a visit to the House of Commons. The Lancashire and Surrey teams were shown over the House by an M.P. friend of Mr. Peter Eckersley, who was then the Lancashire skipper and a Member of Parliament. At the end of the tour Brooks, who was noted for his generosity and his ebullience, and who did not know that the guide was an M.P., offered him half a crown. When a team mate identified ‘the guide’ he almost collapsed. He was never allowed to forget the incident.
At Taunton in 1924 Jack Mercer was 12th man for Glamorgan and he told me he had received a good tip for the 2.30 – Lucentio, which duly won at 8 to 1; we both backed it. I was told the good news by George Hunt, one of the Somerset batsmen, when he arrived at the wicket during the afternoon. I had to give him out first ball. As he left for the Pavilion he called out to me, ‘I only came in to tell you your horse had won – cheerio.’
When H. M. Garland-Wells was bowling for Surrey I was often so amused by his observations, his grimaces and his gesticulations that I had to hold up play to wipe the tears from my eyes. If he was not getting the best of luck he would cast his eyes and arms heavenwards and cry, ‘Give me strength.’
I remember George Gunn, of Notts, being bowled for a ‘duck’ by Maurice Tate at Hove, and as he passed me on the way out he said: ‘I think I’ll go to the front and have a sunbathe while I’m waiting. Then I’ll get a century in the second innings.’ He did both.
Wilfred Rhodes used to bat with the toe of his left foot cocked much in the manner of Dr. W. G. Grace, judging from the photographs of the ‘Old Man’, and Harold Larwood, in a skittish mood after lunch, said to me as he prepared to bowl, ‘I’m after Dusty’s toe.’ Of course, it was the last thing he meant to do, but the second ball was a full toss and landed bang on the cocked foot. As Rhodes was right in front of the wicket I had to give him out when Larwood appealed. Rhodes was too occupied with his immediate troubles to hear the appeal or to see my raised finger, for he took off his pad, his boot and finally his sock. He nursed his toe, finally pronounced himself fit and began to dress again. When he came to put on his pad I asked sympathetically, ‘Can you walk?’ Meditatively he replied, ‘Aye.’
‘Then walk slowly back to the Pavilion: I’m afraid you’re out,’ I said. He suffered the double blow with all the dignity he could summon.
There was a noted player, long since retired, whose command of length was far superior to his command of English, and his solecisms grew funnier as the seasons rolled by. With a sweep of his arm, indicating a built-up area near a ground, he said, ‘I remember when all this land was dialect.’ Hurting his knee when he was bowling he told his team mates, ‘I believe I’ve slipped a cartridge.’ He talked to me of sending down three full tosses ‘in concussion’.
One of the funniest incidents of my career occurred many years ago when my colleague, rather an elderly gentleman, became embarrassed during mid-afternoon. The batsmen looked quite set, so he asked me if I could suggest an excuse for him to leave the field. I told him I would examine a bail, call him over, and after a consultation he would go off the field to change the bail. We went through the pantomime and he raced off the field with the bail. But a keen young member of the ground staff had been closely watching the proceedings; he met my colleague at the foot of the Pavilion steps with a new bail!
Harry Howell, who, if he had been an inch or two taller, would have been a devastating fast bowler, was beating the bat time and again only to shave the stumps with exasperating regularity. ‘Hard luck, Harry,’ I consoled as he walked back to his bowling mark, ‘– keep trying.’
‘I’m trying,’ he replied, ‘but the blooming ball ain’t.’
[. . .] A decision I was forced yet reluctant to give was against Bill Edrich in a Gentlemen v. Players match. The light was not too good and Edrich was batting against Kenneth Farnes, who was bowling quicker than ever; he looked as if he was replying to the selectors who had dropped him from the Test side. One ball rose at great speed right on to Edrich’s head and knocked him out. It went to that great enthusiast, J. W. A. Stephenson, in the slips. After taking some time to come round, Bill bravely indicated to Wally Hammond, the Gents skipper, that he was ready to resume. But Hammond said to Stephenson, ‘He hit that.’ They appealed to me and I had to give Edrich out as the ball had grazed his bat on the way to his head. It was a terrible crack and Edrich did not know what had happened. Fred Price, who had been sitting in the Pavilion to be night watchman, passed Edrich on the Pavilion steps, saw how white and drawn he looked, and said, ‘I’ve got a wife; he’s not going to kill me.’
I’ve nearly been maimed many times myself. At Hove, Jim Langridge was bowling his left-arm slows to F. R. Brown, then a member of the Surrey side. Jim liked the umpire to stand up close to the wicket and I said to him as I took my position, ‘Don’t bowl any half-volleys or he will murder us.’ The second ball of the following over was a half-volley and Brown hit it straight back with all his great might. The ball struck my artificial arm, removing it from its socket, bounced on the ground once and then crashed against the sightscreen. There was a horrified silence around the ground as the spectators saw my arm dangling at my side. I left the field to readjust the socket.
‘Here – have a brandy, old chap,’ offered one white-faced member as I walked into the Pavilion. I accepted gladly!
It was fortunate for me that the ball did not strike my live arm; it would surely have been smashed. When I returned to the wicket I stood yards behind the stumps, much to the amusement of the crowd, and I took similar evasive action subsequently whenever I encountered the same batsman and bowler in opposition. There were few harder hitters in cricket than Brown, who still talks about the incident and mentioned it in a very kind letter he wrote me upon my retirement.
I feared my good arm had been broken in a Hastings Festival match when Lord Tennyson struck me with a powerful pull to the square-leg position. Happily, I was only severely bruised, but I did not fully appreciate his Lordship’s remark, ‘That would have been a four if you hadn’t got in the way.’
Samuel Reynolds Hole was Dean of Rochester from 1887 to 1904 and a noted horticulturalist. From The Memories of Dean Hole (1893).
GEORGE PARR’S HITTING, especially to leg, was, I think, the most cheerful performance I ever saw with the bat. He went to play for his village at a country match, and there was a sort of panic among the little fishes in the presence of this leviathan. George ventured on an impossible run, and was manifestly out. But when the question ‘How’s that?’ was put to the umpire, his courage failed. He hesitated, and, turning to the batsman, said: ‘Now, Mestur Parr, you know a great deal more about these things than I do; what should you say?’ ‘I should say, “Not out”,’ was the reply. ‘And so say I, Mestur Parr,’ said the umpire. – ‘Lads, get on with your gam.’
There are other quaint records of country umpires. My son was captain for a time of an eleven in a mining district, and refreshed me at intervals with his reminiscences. One worthy old fellow remarked, in returning thanks at a supper for the toast of the umpires, ‘My opinion of an umpire is that he should be fair, and I don’t hold with no foul dealings. What I always say is, Fairation with’ (just a short pause) ‘just a slight leaning towards your own side.’ And I do not suppose that you would find an umpire without this little bias more quickly than Diogenes with his lantern could find a perfectly honest man.
In the same district it was solemnly decreed, at a general meeting of the club, that, though a certain umpire (I have his name, but must not reveal it) ‘in ordinary fixtures gave general satisfaction, yet, taking into consideration the peculiarities of other umpires, he must be regarded as a little too fair for such important competitions as the Derbyshire and Wake Cups’.
And when one of these ‘other umpires’ exemplified his peculiarities by giving a man ‘in’, who certainly was so when the verdict was uttered, but not when the wicket went down, a voice came from a distant part of the field, ‘Mestur Umpire, I don’t want to have no unpleasantness with you; but if you come that little gam again, I shall just step in and pull out your mustassios by the rewts.’
Within my own experience and neighbourhood, another umpire, in speaking after a match to the united elevens, made his confession thus: ‘Gentlemen, I think that the time has arrived in which I should offer you my hearty apologies for any prejudice which I may have shown in favour of local talent, and I confidently rely on your forgiveness, because I am sure that you must have noticed in the second innings I treated my own side with undue severity, in order to make an average.’ He might have added that, when it was evident that his friends must win, he regulated his verdicts so that they should not win too easily.
One more delectable incident. I must alter the names of the dramatis personae, but that will be the only fiction. Mr. Stumps, an umpire, has had a quarrel with Mr. Batts, and on the morning of a match he addresses Mr. Bowles, sotto voce: ‘Mr. Bowles, that there Batts is going to play again you today, and if ever you says to me consarning that ruffian, “How’s that?” I shall lose no time in telling you, “You can chuck her up, Mr. Bowles.”’
But the ‘out-and-I’ve-won-five-bob’ umpire is now almost extinct, and the office of adjudication is entrusted to honest men, who love cricket too well to insult and spoil it.
Their long white coats are somewhat unsightly to us elderly gentlemen, who resent innovations; but their resemblance to the apparel of the kennel huntsman may reconcile them to hunting men.
C. B. Fry played many sports at the highest level, representing England at cricket and football, as well as holding the world long jump record.
This incident occurred during the second Test against the Australians in June 1905. From Life Worth Living (1939).
THE SECOND MATCH, at Lord’s, was drawn. The wicket was dead, but not wet, when we won the toss. We scored 282 in our first innings. A. C. MacLaren, Tyldesley and I made the runs. I was very much annoyed (of course in private) because when I had made 73 and was well set for a century, that obstinate umpire Jim Phillips gave me out caught at the wicket when I hit the toe of my front boot at least a foot away from the ball. His heavy, autocratic explanation was that he heard a click. I asked him – of course, after the match – whether he was sure it was not the slamming of a door in the pavilion. Jim and I were slight enemies, because years before he had no-balled me for throwing. That was all right if he disliked my slightly bent arm action, but it was no reason why he should have no-balled me for my other nine balls of the over when I delivered slow round-arms and slow over-arms with an absolutely rigid elbow.
This elaborate incident occurred in a match at Brighton between Sussex and Oxford. Before the second innings I had my right elbow encased in splints and bandages and took the field with my sleeve buttoned at the wrist. But old Billy Murdoch, our captain, who had ostentatiously put me on to bowl in the first innings at Jim Phillips’ end, because he knew that Jim had come down to Brighton to no-ball me, twisted his black moustache, showed his white teeth, and refused to put me on. I was both astonished and annoyed, but he refused further particulars. Jim Phillips was a famous umpire. He was an Australian who came over, qualified for Middlesex and was a second-rate elephantine slow-medium bowler. He was quite honest, but was ambitious to achieve the reputation of a ‘strong umpire’. His other ambition was to qualify as a mining engineer, and he used to go about with a Hall and Knight’s Algebra in his pocket.
William Sapte was a humorous writer of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The following list is from his Cricketer’s Guyed for 1886.
R. Thoms is Bob Thoms, a famous umpire of the nineteenth century.
(For the first time explicitly laid down)
‘I cannot tell thee all I know.’ – R. Thoms.
1. No umpire shall pay for his own drinks.
2. Every umpire shall be at liberty to call for such drinks as shall seem most desirable to him, and the game shall be stopped till he have them.
3. In future arm-chairs shall be provided for all umpires.
4. No umpire shall be expected to stand or sit for more than fifty runs at any one time.
5. The decisions of an umpire shall be given in favour of the side which employs him.
6. If the captain of the side which employs him is bowled, the umpire shall call ‘Wide!’ or ‘No ball!’
7. If the said captain be caught, the umpire shall cry ‘Bump-ball! Not out’ – without being appealed to.
8. If the said captain be run out, or stumped, or hit his wicket, or be leg before, or handle the ball, the umpire shall, without being appealed to, declare the batsman ‘not out’.
9. In short, he shall do all such and several things as may be within his power whereby he can benefit the side which employs him, and more especially the captain thereof;
10. Unless he consider himself treated with insufficient respect;
11. Or insufficiently well remunerated;
12. Or have backed the other side to win the match.
13. And it shall be lawful for an umpire to impede a bowler in the act of delivering the ball by shouting to him;
14. Or by tripping him up;
15. Or sprinkling sawdust in his face.
16. No umpire is called upon to explain or give any reason for any of his decisions.
17. Any umpire may order the game to be suspended, besides as per rule 2, when he desires to light his pipe;
18. Or read the paper;
19. Or converse with his fellow-umpire.
20. After the game, the ball, stumps, and bails shall become the property of the umpires, for their sole use and benefit.
21. It shall be lawful for an umpire to take charge of any money or valuable property entrusted to him by the players for that purpose;
22. But he shall on no account be compelled to return the same to their owners.
23. An umpire may object to any fieldsman, batsman, bowler or spectator, who in any way impugns or questions his decision; and such fieldsman, batsman, bowler, or spectator, shall be at once suspended. (This is designed to counteract Law 3 of Cricket.)
24. If any bowler throw the ball in lieu of bowling it, the umpire may call ‘No ball!’ But he may, if he prefer it, look the other way, or wink, or expectorate, or shrug his shoulders, or refer any objectors to the seventh law of cricket, as given on page 11 of the Guyed.
From Cricket in the Long Grass (1995), a memoir of village cricket in Hertfordshire in the years before the Second World War. The names of places and people are fictitious.
SOON AFTER BECOMING the team’s scorer Jim began to realise how very important was the role played by the Umpire, in the average village cricket match. Much more important than their counterparts in the first-class game; although, like them, they were usually ex-players suffering with a bit of arthritis or back trouble perhaps, which had caught up with them in later years.
To understand properly the extraordinary different problems he was faced with – compared to the Umpire in a test-match, it is necessary to visualise the isolation and consequent interwoven fabric of their lives. When virtually the only means of travel was on foot or by ‘push-bike’; therefore, footballers and cricketers could play only for the Village or Parish in which they lived – where they went to school, grew up, married, and eventually expired. Our typical village umpire then, would probably be related to at least half the team either by blood or marriage and one or two more working colleagues during the week and might even be adding his voice to others in the Church choir on Sundays.
Because of all this it was most difficult for the poor chap to give a Home batsman out ‘L.B.W.’ when, only the previous day, the same man had given up his whole evening to help put up the umpire’s new chicken shed! or, indeed, another possible victim of the upraised finger who came round during the week with two score of fine, upstanding brussel plants, for which he refuses to accept any remuneration.
Consequently, decisions were often dictated by who was involved and which team would benefit rather than by the boring technical laws printed in the back of the scorebook.
Rivalry was another factor in the arbitrator’s decision making:– if Umpire ‘A’ bagged six victims in the afternoon – three L.B.W., two Caught Behind, and one Run-out, perhaps, on behalf of his fielding team – then his opposite number would be looking for at least six and, hopefully, seven when his team were bowling.
It may be argued that, in theory anyway, one biased official cancelled out the other but, as every cricketer knows, this does not work out in practice.
There were, of course, some Umpires who were strong willed enough to be honest and unbiased even though they might suffer for it socially and domestically afterwards. A batsman given out ‘L.B.W.’ by his own Umpire felt extremely hard done by and doubly damned.
One or two amiable and well liked adjudicators could be found on the circuit, chaps who could get away with anything, for or against, by sheer humour or wit: ‘Old Harry’ who ‘Stood’ for Cottam, had developed the art even further by shouting a loud ‘Owzat?’ himself when the ball hit the pad; his subsequent decision, however, still depended mostly on which side were batting.
Young Jim knew nothing of all this as yet, partly because he was not allowed into the local with the men after the match where the post-mortem arguments flourished. There would always be ample examples of dodgy decisions to be fought over and blame to be apportioned whilst who scored the runs and who took the wickets was of secondary interest.
So, it will be seen, that in many cases the ‘Man in White’ was considered more as a member of the team than as a trusted neutral. This conclusion is underlined by the fact that when the Captain found himself short of a player, prior to an away match, and no means or hopes of getting a replacement – he preferred to take the field with ten players with the Umpire retaining his official position – rather than to invite the gentleman (who was likely to be a handy player still) to become the eleventh man, thus leaving the umpiring open to all kinds of possible abuse. The thought of having two inhabitants of the Home village in charge of the match would have been quite untenable.
As one would expect, the one area of the game in which most village cricketers excelled, was their throwing: even Jack Hobbs, England’s finest Cover Point of the day, would have envied the skills and power of these men who had been throwing stones at hares, rats, birds and anything else that ran, crawled, or flew around the countryside, since their schooldays. Many a rabbit ended up in the oven through foolishly running head-long into a fast moving stone – and many a pigeon and pheasant saw nothing of the cause of his sudden downfall from the apparent safety of his lofty roost in the dusk of a quiet evening.
Therefore, run-outs, and near run-outs were a regular problem for the Umpires. One such instance to illustrate the point involved ‘Old Joe’, the Shappley official himself, whose ambling journey to a Home match took him, by a slightly devious route, into the backdoor of the ‘Dog And Duck’ and, some fifteen minutes later, out the front door and eventually, to the cricket field.
On the day in question, it was very plain that the outcome of the match depended, to a large extent, on the early dismissal of the opposition’s number 3 – a most feared batsman called ‘Jake’ – blessed with an exceptionally keen eye, backed up with huge shoulders and arms to match. Already he had bludgeoned twenty or more forceful runs and all seemed lost for the Home side when suddenly he misjudged a second run. Tom Green, fielding somewhere around the long-on area, swooped on the ball which, for once, had landed in one of the shorter cropped patches, and smashed the wicket down with a direct fifty-yard throw with the pugnacious ‘Jake’ yards short of his ground. The Shappley team rose as one man in a loud and triumphant appeal to the squareleg umpire; the peacefully grazing cows lifted their tails high in the air and stampeded blindly at the sudden, ecstatic roar from eleven throats on the field plus three more watching elderly enthusiasts who sat, as usual, on a dead fallen tree, as near as dammit square with the wicket in question. The rooks in the elms at long leg also took vociferous umbrage at this uncalled-for interruption to their normal Saturday afternoon domestic affairs.
On the field of play a stunned silence followed that single outburst – simply because there was no Square-Leg Umpire in sight to offer a response! Even as the players looked at each other in silent bewilderment Joe’s ample figure came into view, carefully negotiating the stile that led back from the spinney to the field, still attempting to do up his buttons and no doubt wondering what all the ‘Hoo-Hah’ was about. He was quickly and loudly informed of the situation by a number of angry voices – chief amongst them, naturally enough, being that of Tom – whose mighty throw was responsible. Poor Joe knew not what to do for the best and could only repeat and over again – ‘I ’ad ter goo an ’ev a dror orf, I was bustin’.’ The batsmen, meanwhile, were conferring with the Benton Umpire at the bowler’s end and naturally insisted unanimously that ‘If the Judge is absent there can be no sentence’, claiming with confidence and vigour that the charge of ‘Run-out’ must be dismissed rather than the blatantly guilty batsman.
Eventually the match recommenced under a very heavy psychological cloud and minus the services of Tom Green who stamped angrily off – snatched his jacket and brown shoes from the holly bush, where they always hung during play, and set off for home, pausing only to turn and shout ‘Doon’t pick me when we play this lot ag’in – if ever we dew.’
Benton won the match easily enough and the Schoolmaster Captain of the home side tried hard to patch things up but, not being a natural ‘drinking man’ he was handicapped from the start, for many harsh and earthy Barfordshire words had been said by various members of his team. So the Benton team mounted their bikes and set off home – well pleased with the victory, which more than compensated for minor things like being sworn at or being accused of cheating because their hero had not ‘Walked’.
Joe had quietly slipped away, after one more brief visit over the stile, to the spinney.
From Curiosities of Cricket (1897).
Appeal by umpire to spectators to decide boundary hit (Cricket, Feb. 25, 1893)
10 balls given in over (Blackheath Amateur v. Charlton/Sporting Life, Sept. 9, 1848)
9 balls given in over (Coburg v. Ormond/Melbourne/Cricket, April 30, 1891)
Batsman given not out though bowled because umpire did not see ball bowled (Norton v. Staffordshire/Norton/Cricket Field, June 18, 1892)
Batsman given out for ‘breach of etiquette’ in making back-handed hit (South Africa/Cricket Field, Jan. 5, 1895)
Batsman given out hitting with one hand (Elstree School/Cricket Field, May 13, 1893)
Batsman given out leg before wicket by one umpire and caught by other umpire (Ceylon, Cricket, Jan. 28, 1897)
Batsman given out ‘running round his ground’ (being beyond his end of crease) (Eng. Game of Cricket, by Box, p. 384)
Batsman given out leg before wicket for knocking off bails with string of hat (Captain Johnson) (Royal Artillery v. Mr. Fowler’s XI/Woolwich/Scores & Biog., v. xiv., p. 1057)
Batsman given out for wooden leg falling off and fielder putting down wicket with it (Walworth/Cricket Notes, by Bolland, p. 118)
Batsman, though bowled and stumped, given ‘not bowled out’ by bowler’s umpire because he did not see ball bowled, and by batsman’s umpire, ‘not stumped out’ because first bowled (Bickley/Cricket Field, July 30, 1892)
Block given as ‘centre’ and ‘far stick’ (Warley/Cricket, Aug. 20, 1891)
Block given as ‘a little east’ and ‘a little west’ (Toronto/Cricket Field, Dec. 31, 1892)
Block given as ‘a little more to the north’ (Canada/Cricket, Aug. 20, 1891)
Decision: ‘I didn’t see but I give him out’ (Royston v. Littleborough/Cricket, April 30, 1891)
Decision ending match for 4 minutes’ delay (Cranbrook v. Rolvenden/Cranbrook/Scores and Biog., v. xii, p. 199)
Decision over-ruled (Eng. v. M.C.C. & Metro Clubs’ XV/Lord’s/Scores and Biog. v. iv, p. 220)
Decision over-ruled (England v. Nottinghamshire/Lord’s/Scores and Biog., v. iv, p. 582)
No ball called because delivered with both feet behind crease (Theory and Practice of Cricket, by Box, p. 117)
Practice ball bowled called wide (Sussex/Cricket, Aug. 14, 1890)
Short run called when only single attempted (Cricket Field, Feb. 25, 1893)
Umpire ducked in pond for giving unsatisfactory decision (Bevenden v. Penshurst/Cricket Field, Feb. 25, 1893)
Umpire fielded and returned ball (Threlfall Warrnambool v. Portland and Port Fairy/Warrnambool, Victoria/Cricket, June 4, 1891)
3 wides allowed for hit off ball called wide (Georgetown/Cricket, Jan. 27, 1887)