A History of Cricket at King Edward's School, BIrmingham

4 the second innings: John was not given a bowl. Neither of the brothers made very many with the bat, and Bromsgrove on this occasion were victorious by 70 runs. Some indication of the rising profile of cricket at KES in the 1850s can be gleaned from a contribution to the March 1857 issue of King Edward VI’s Monthly Magazine (a journal which made a brief appearance in 1856 and 1857), entitled ‘A Bromsgrove Match’. The account is so delightfully written that it deserves to be better known, and to find a place in anthologies of cricket literature. The anonymous author describes the journey by horse and drag from New Street through the country lanes to Bromsgrove, the arrival at Bromsgrove, and the progress of the match. KES bat first but Bromsgrove, batting on after lunch, soon exceed their score: ‘somehow we can never field after dinner’. Going in for a second time, some KES batsmen are not to be found, but eventually Brookes and Tibbs minor are discovered in an adjacent field, ‘in the enormous act of smoking’. Time is called with KES still at the wicket, but Bromsgrove have won on first innings. Nonetheless, the team sings cheerfully on the way home as darkness falls. This may be a work of fiction, but it clearly shows not only that cricket was played at King Edward’s in the 1850s but that it was important enough to write about. Moreover, the author is clearly conscious of what was happening in the wider world of cricket: the KES players are greeted by comments from Bromsgrove players referring to Joe Marshall playing well in the Cambridge matches, and the writer describes Barnes of KES as blocking in the Fuller Pilch style and says that the Bromsgrove captain hits lobs like George Parr. When we come to the 1860s, our knowledge advances a stage further, thanks to an article in the School Chronicle in 1872. The Chronicle made its appearance in March of that year. It lapsed after ten issues, but reappeared in 1875, and has continued from that day to this, albeit undergoing a number of changes in format. The June 1872 issue considers some of the difficulties in playing cricket in 1872 (of which more in the next chapter) and then looks back over past seasons with the aid of a scorebook (now, it seems, lost) containing accounts of matches from 1863 to 1869. For these years, we therefore have figures for the number of games played, won and lost in each season. It is evident that this was a generally unsuccessful period for the School eleven. Of the 49 games played between 1863 and 1869, 32 were lost and somewhere between 10 and 12 were won (there are problems in reconciling the figures for 1865). If we take the whole of the period following the successful years of the mid-1850s – from 1858 to 1872, the next significant milestone – in these fifteen seasons 47 games were lost out of 70 played. By 1872 cricket at KES had reached a rather low point, a matter to which we will return in the next chapter. Rather surprisingly, the biggest victory came in the last of these years, 1872, against Tettenhall, by an innings and 70 runs. KES made 128 and Tettenhall were then shot out for 22 and 36. It seems that Tettenhall were a very weak side that year: earlier in the same season, Tettenhall had again been defeated by a KES side that only contained eight players. Otherwise, there is not a lot to be said about the isolated victories that were recorded during this period. Scores were usually low, and so the key factor was generally an exceptional bowling performance, as for example the eight wickets taken by M Templeton across two innings to beat Witton in 1865, and CH Allcock’s figures of 5-11 against Queen’s