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

19 Chapter Four THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 1894-1901 A period in the doldrums followed. There were not as many outstanding players, standards were lower, interest declined slightly, and the team was unsuccessful. W Horton, captain in 1894, continued the method of criticising his team’s performances through the medium of a rather sarcastic article in the Chronicle. Some of his fielders, he said, should begin by practising with a pillow in the bedroom and gradually work their way upwards. He finished with the inspiring words, ‘Stick to the School Club; attend the practices; and don’t funk!’ In this season ten matches were lost and only four won. No averages are extant, but JR Horton and TS Wickham batted well, and E Astbury was the leading bowler. In the away match against Warwick, KES were only 14 runs behind on first innings, but Warwick in their second innings scored freely against the School bowlers and made a total of 205. In 1895 Horton had to resign the captaincy through illness, and HH Barrett took over. Twenty-one matches were played – probably far too many – and 14 were lost. The best players were all-rounders E Goodwin, a medium-fast bowler (313 runs and 33 wickets) and RG Bisseker, an off-spinner (276 runs and 48 wickets). R Dark, a slow left-hander, took the most wickets (58) and also performed usefully with the bat. The rest were for the most part undistinguished, especially Astbury, who fell away considerably. The side’s best performance was a win against Dorridge CC by 81 runs. There was another win against Wellington College (later renamed Wrekin), chiefly interesting for the fact that Bisseker’s brother, HT Bisseker, was playing for Wellington. The two brothers took 15 of the 33 wickets that fell in this match. At the end of the season, Barrett blamed the team’s almost total lack of success on the neglect of junior cricket during the past three years, and took steps to put the matter right. In 1896 L Green was originally appointed captain, but was unable to take up the position owing to illness, and Goodwin was appointed in his stead. With Bisseker to support him, seven matches were won and eight lost – a better record. The best performances were the two victories over Warwick and the defeat of The Oratory (another regular opponent for many years, until this school moved from Birmingham to London). The second match against Warwick was won by two runs, and without Bisseker, who missed the train. The batting was unreliable, with only Goodwin and Bisseker making runs consistently, and they also did most of the bowling. Such success as the team had was due to the hard work of these two. Bisseker made 347 runs in all and took 39 wickets; Goodwin did not score as many runs, but took 63 wickets. An interesting feature of this season was the introduction of colours (or at least, the first mention of them in the Chronicle).