by A. W. Pullin
The best part of Mr Mitchell's time—that is, the period when his cricket would have been at its best — was spent among the students of Eton, and his influence on the pastime generally must be traced in the careers of the boys that came after him, rather than in the mere statistical records of the game.
A few instances have occurred in which two generations of cricketers have passed under Mr Mitchell's review at Eton. He has had three of his own sons in the school Eleven. Then in last season's match with Harrow the boys who distinguished themselves included H. K. Longman, J. Wormald, and O. C. S. Gilliat. The fathers of all these young players were in the Eton Eleven in their school-days, and were cricket pupils of Mr Mitchell.
The only touring team that Mr Mitchell thought of accompanying was the one that went to Canada in 1872 under Mr Fitzgerald. He had promised to make one of the party, but had to retract on finding that he would have had to come back early and travel home by himself.
Among a few curious matches that Mr Mitchell has taken part in, mention may be made of the following:—
In his first game with Eton against Winchester, when the last batsman came in, the game was a tie. Before the winning hit could be made 6 maiden overs were bowled.
He also took part in two tie matches in one season. One was Fourteen of Oxford University v. the old All-England Eleven at Oxford; the other was Fourteen of the Free Foresters v. Notts. In the same year there was another singular game. It was Perambulators v. Reigate at Reigate. Reigate headed the Perambulators in the first innings, but on taking the last innings the Perambulators had exactly tied the score and had 8 wickets in hand when time was called. Thus they could claim a tie but not a win. Mr Mitchell was not out with 69.
Mr Mitchell mentions a curious mannerism of George Atkinson, the old Yorkshire bowler, who used to coach occasionally at Eton. "As he delivered the ball with his right hand, his left arm was swung round with a similar action. You thus might have thought he was going to deliver the ball with his left hand. He came sailing up to the pitch with both arms swinging like a windmill."
It will have been gathered that Mr Mitchell has views of his own as to what is most valuable in cricket, and as he can speak with an authority that is almost unique, his opinions as to necessary reforms are entitled to be received with respect by all classes of cricketers. With the enunciation of these views this Talk will close.
"First, as to umpiring. I am afraid that in modern times players and the public have got too much into the habit of objecting to the decisions of the umpires. That tendency did not exist in my younger days. I remember we were always told that an umpire would make mistakes, and that such mistakes were part of the luck of the game. They should therefore be accepted in that spirit without any fuss being made about them.
"I do not think that cricket is as good a sport now as it was in my day. Of course there are more good players than there were thirty years ago, but whether the best are much better than the best of those days is another matter. In the time I am speaking of, if a man made a long score at the Oval, or Fenners, or at Brighton, it was said that it was no test of cricket. Any one could get runs on those grounds, although there were no boundaries. The test was their ability to get runs on grounds that were more difficult. The careful preparation given to the modern wickets, and especially the use of water, has brought about a revolution in the state of the wickets all over the country. If you are now to have a game that is really interesting, you must so alter your rules that it will be possible to play a match to a finish.
"I believe that one suggested alteration is to be tried at Lord's in some of the matches this summer. This is the running out of all hits. That is going back to the practice that prevailed in my time. The ball was then stopped by the crowd: it should now be possible to put a net round the enclosure, and the ball on striking that and rebounding should be considered in play. If it be hit over the net and into the spectators' benches, I do not see how it is to be treated as anything but a boundary.
"Another necessary alteration is in the leg-before-wicket law. If it is impossible to come to a common agreement upon that very controversial question, I would make a suggestion that the bowling-crease be widened. That crease is now 3 feet wide on each side of the stumps. I would add 6 inches to the crease on each side. I think that would help the bowler by giving him more room in which to work upon the batsman's defence. At present some bowlers are cramped in their movements by the limits of the bowling-crease.
"Then I always have thought that the closure should be applied at any time a captain may deem fit. The closure was introduced in order that it might assist a team to victory. That being so, it ought to be at a team's disposal at any time in a match."
182
THE LATE GEORGE FREEMAN.
IT is a misnomer to call this chapter on George Freeman a Talk. The doyen of English fast bowlers died on November 18, 1895; the idea of these Talks, unfortunately, did not receive birth until a considerable time afterwards. Yet it has not been a difficult matter to collect from George Freeman's friends and contemporaries material for what, the writer trusts, will be considered an interesting chapter of reminiscences of one who was perhaps the greatest fast bowler English cricket has known.
It is customary even now to speak of George Freeman as the crack Malton player. To do so, however, is to mortally offend the residents of a little Yorkshire town not far away —Boroughbridge. It was while a member of the Malton Cricket Club that Freeman made a great name in first-class cricket; but to Boroughbridge belongs the distinction attached to Freeman's birthplace, and it was with the Boroughbridge Club that he received his initiation into the mysteries of bat and ball.
The first record of George Freeman's existence is to be found in the registry of the Boroughbridge Parish Church. This gives December 10, 1843, as the date of his baptism, "the son of Michael and Ann Freeman," the father's occupation a "mason and bricklayer." Freeman's birthplace was in the Horse Fair, but his parents and he afterwards resided for some years in a house on which now stands the York City and County Bank.
The esteemed vicar of Boroughbridge, the Rev. Canon Owen, who celebrated the jubilee of his vicariate in 1897, was George Freeman's earliest cricket tutor. It was he, too, who laid in the boy's heart the seeds of those high moral qualities which distinguished him as a cricketer and a man, and have caused his memory to be revered in Yorkshire as perhaps the memory of no other past cricketer has been to this day. It was in 1847, when George Freeman was a sturdy toddler of four years, that Canon Owen took up the vicariate of Boroughbridge, and in the parish church and schools under his guidance the lad grew and had his training.
"He was a very apt pupil," says Canon Owen. "We had various branches of athletics connected with the schools and village, and young George came out very well in them all. Moreover, he was always good-tempered, civil, and obliging. In his youngest cricketing days he had fairly the command of the ball in bowling, with the easy delivery for which he was so marked in after-life. My place was at the wicket, and I had a code of signals with him by which we used to attack the batsmen in their weak spots. Thus, if I thought he ought to send down a faster ball, I should rub my chin. Then, if I considered he was bowling a little bit short, I would raise my hat or cap; while, if I put up my right hand or the left, it was a signal to him what to do next ball. These signals were often the means of batsmen being got out. He bowled many times throughout our matches unchanged. He was a very good fielder, and a dashing bat, but with perhaps too great a tendency to hit.
"The first entry of young Freeman's name in our Boroughbridge cricket book" (it is Canon Owen who is still talking) "is in a match on September 10, 1857, when he would be fourteen years of age. It was a match between Ten Boys of Boroughbridge and Ten Boys of Sessay. His first big performance is recorded in a match on August 20, 1859, for Boroughbridge against Knaresborough. In the first innings he took 6 wickets for 23 runs, and scored 37; in the second he took 9 wickets for 15 runs—the tenth was run out—and scor
ed 7. Fifteen wickets for 38 runs in a good representative club match is a fine feat for a boy of sixteen, as I think all will admit Freeman's chief confrere in bowling in these early days was John Daglish, a left-hand bowler, who is still living.
"There was one incident in these times at which I am always inclined to smile when I recall it. It was when knickerbockers were first introduced, and Mr George Cayley, afterwards Sir George Cayley, Bart., came to our ground wearing a pair, and making a very fine display of legs. He went in to bat without leg-guards. George Freeman quietly said, 'I'll have a go at those legs.' He did. The first ball hit them, and Mr Cayley flinched a little. The second hit him again on the legs. Mr Cayley deemed it desirable to get a pair of leg-guards. Then Freeman apparently thought it was necessary to leave the legs alone and go for the wicket, for the third ball bowled him."
George Freeman's first essay in the serious business of life was made in the office of a Mr Hirst, solicitor, Boroughbridge. Then he came to Leeds, following the same bent. He was a lad of nineteen when on Monday, September 22, in the year 1862, he played a famous single-wicket match at the Royal Park Grounds, Woodhouse Moor. A cup was offered by Mr "Tommy" Clapham, the proprietor of the grounds, and George Freeman contested Job Pearson, known by the sobriquet of "Nellie" Pearson of Farsley, for the honour of possessing it. The match resulted in favour of young Freeman by an innings and 8 runs. The following is the full score:—
FREEMAN.
1st innings 13 ; widea, 2; total, 15.
2nd innings, 9; wides, 2 ; total, 11.
PEARSON.
1st innings, 4.
2nd innings, 2; wide, 1; total, 3.
The first innings of Pearson was terminated by a wonderful throw in by his antagonist. Freeman had to make the throw in sideways with the wickets, so that he had practically only one stump to aim at, but he brought off the shot. Young George won the match and the cup easily, and the performance created a great sensation in local cricket circles.
While in Leeds Freeman used to play with the old Leeds Clarendon Club. It is recalled by one who played against him that when he was first asked if he would try his hand at bowling, the batsman's left arm was blackened by his wonderfully swift deliveries in the first over. At that time George only took three or four strides before delivering the ball, and this easy action was maintained by him when he got into first-class cricket.
From Leeds Freeman went as a professional cricketer to Grange House School, Edinburgh. Among the existing tokens of his success there is a bat which still hangs on the wall at the residence of his widow at Sowerby, Thirsk. Mrs Freeman was kind enough to show the writer this and other relics of the great cricketer. The inscription on the bat tells its own tale: "Presented to George Freeman for his excellent score of 145 for Grange House v. Dalkeith C.C., 18th July 1863." Another bat shows by the inscription that it was " Presented to George Freeman by Messrs Wise & Kay for his two excellent scores of 84 v. Sessay and 148 v. Beverley in 1868." Yet another is equally interesting by reason of the fact that it records how, after his retirement from first-class cricket, he retained his old skill. The plate on this bat states that it was "Presented to Mr George Freeman by the Malton Cricket Club for his well-played innings of 51, Malton v. York, June 28, 1882."
Apparently young Yorkshire cricketers of promise did not in Freeman's early days, as they do now, find Scottish cricket an open sesame to English honours. On wishing to leave Edinburgh for England, an advertisement was inserted on his behalf in 'Bell's Life,' and not a single reply was received. But Freeman found a congenial situation at Malton, and it was while connected with the Malton Club that the zenith of his fame was reached.
Mr Harry Dewse, of the Cricketers' Arms, Toft Green, York, a cricketer of local eminence and repute, claims to have been chiefly instrumental in bringing Freeman to Malton. The circumstances are narrated by him as follows:—
"York had arranged to play Knaresborough, for whom George Freeman was playing. I was struck with his bowling—in a double sense, in fact, for he made my thigh black and blue with his fast off-pitched balls. I asked him home to tea with me, and he inquired what I was doing, and I told him I was travelling in the coal trade. He remarked to me that he was heartily tired of being in Scotland. Not long after Mr Wise, a manure merchant at Malton, asked me if I knew any one likely to suit him as a book-keeper and traveller, and I recommended George Freeman to him. I wrote to Freeman, and got him to come down and play for Malton against Thirsk, at Thirsk. He made 60 runs and got nearly all the wickets; and that led to an engagement with Mr Wise, and to his playing with Thirsk against All England, and afterwards with the latter team in Staffordshire."
Canon Owen has said that Freeman was a dashing bat, with "too great a tendency to hit." This tendency, however, once enabled Freeman to make a historic drive at Boroughbridge, the ball clearing some trees outside the enclosure and rolling on to the bank and then into the river. This hit is still spoken of with wonder, and is as much a treasured local tradition as the famous leg-hits of George Parr on the Trent Bridge ground.
Canon Owen recalls being present at Lord's when for the first time he saw Freeman and "W. G." meet as opponents. "The first ball," he says, "pitched to the off, broke back, and shot across towards the leg-stump. 'W. G.' just stopped it. The second he stopped easily. The third was hit to the on for 2. The fourth was a ball like the first, but faster, and Grace's leg-stump was struck before he had time to stop the shooter."
The secret of Freeman's peculiar shooting deliveries is said by Canon Owen to have lain in elbow-work. A twist was imparted to the ball which made it shoot across from the pitch and spin even after the wicket had been struck. Late on in his career, says his old vicar, a small muscle gave way in Freeman's elbow, and impaired the effectiveness of his bowling. Freeman himself used to say that bowling came to him naturally, and that he "could not help being a bowler."
It was George Parr who, in the year 1865, obtained by his recommendation a place for Freeman in the Yorkshire team. The match was Yorkshire v. Cambridgeshire, played at Ashton-under-Lyne on September 14, 15, 16. In 1866 Freeman became a regular member of the Yorkshire Eleven and the star teams of the day, and maintained his position until he retired to devote his energies to the business of an auctioneer at the Thirsk Stock Mart and other markets in the neighbourhood. This business he acquired in 1869, and in 1872 he determined to give it his chief consideration. Hence he only appeared in cricket on irregular occasions afterwards. His last appearance for Yorkshire, nearly ten years after his retirement from regular service, was against Lascelles Hall. He then showed that his hand had not lost its cunning, nor his eye its power of timing, by taking 9 wickets and scoring an innings of 60 off the bat.
George Anderson, one of Freeman's closest friends, gives a few reminiscences that are worth reproducing. "The first time I met George Freeman," writes Mr Anderson, "was at Boston Spa, but I forget the year. He had just returned from a cricket engagement at Edinburgh, and would be about twenty-one years of age. The match was the All-England Eleven v. Twenty-two of Boston Spa and District, and he played for the latter. At that time he bowled very high, which the law did not permit, but the only observation by way of protest was made by Julius C*sar, who said to him, 'I think, young 'un, if you had a course of bricks put down you would be able to bowl a little higher.' Freeman was more successful in getting our wickets on that occasion than some of the other bowlers who were more experienced.
"We afterwards had him against us (the All-England Eleven) in other matches, in which he had considerable success, the last time being at Thirsk. From there he went with the Eleven to Trentham, and afterwards played regularly with them for some two or three seasons, before he joined the United All-England Eleven. When we had Freeman in the England Eleven, we had three of the best fast bowlers of the day—viz., himself, Jackson, and Tarrant. What an example they used to make of the Twenty-two's! Freeman could get runs also, and often made big scores.
"Later on, Freeman had the offer of
a business as an auctioneer at Thirsk. He consulted me as to the advisability of giving up cricket professionally and going in for the business. I advised him by all means to adopt the latter course, which I think he never had reason to regret. In business he gained the confidence and respect of every one who patronised him, by his punctuality, attention, and civility. In private life he was a most kind and affectionate husband and father, a firm and lasting friend, and the very soul of hospitality. I saw a great deal of him after he gave up cricket. We were both fond of shooting, and had many good days' sport in company. He could take his part at that also. His friends and neighbours (and I may most emphatically count myself as one) lamented his loss at the comparatively early age of fifty-two. Judging from appearances, not so very long before his death, it seemed that a good long life was before him."
Reference has already been made to the single - wicket match in Leeds, in which Freeman won a cup against Job Pearson of Farsley. A greater contest than this took place four years later, in August 1866, when Freeman was twentythree years of age. It was between Freeman and Henry Terry of Hull, and took place on the old York ground. The stake was £7$, Freeman having staked ^50 to Terry's ^25 that he could beat him. The match was the outcome of a little bit of "chaff" in which the pair had indulged, and probably it would not have been defended by Freeman in afterlife. There was a game at Hull on Wednesday, June 6, 1866, between the Malton Amateurs and the Hull Town Club, when the former scored 101 and the Hull men 32, and 84 for 9 wickets. An exchange of badinage between Freeman and Terry resulted in the single-wicket contest being arranged for the stake named.