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

26 17, Breeden taking 7 for 13, including a hat-trick, and Bache 3 for 3; the School then made 202, with a not-out 54 from Breeden and good contributions from Richardson and CL Curle, the first of several brothers to play for KES; Bache then took 8 for 27 to dismiss Denstone a second time for 61. Four days later, Nottingham were bowled out for 37 and KES then made 279 for seven declared in reply, with Richardson making 76 and Bache, Higgins and WL Vince all exceeding forty; Breeden then took 7 for 17 as Nottingham were bowled out even more cheaply in their second innings, making only 32. Bache scored 112 not out against Barnt Green, and finished the season with 331 runs and 37 wickets. In a most distinguished School career he totalled 1,260 runs and 93 wickets. He went up to Cambridge, where he gained a Blue for association football, captaining the University side. He later played for West Bromwich Albion as an amateur and gained amateur international caps. He also gained Blues for hockey and tennis, but the demands of work prevented him from adding a cricket Blue to this collection – he could certainly have had one, since he scored 137 not out in the freshmen’s trial match in 1909 and 114 in the seniors’ match a year later. While still at School, he made his first-class debut for Worcestershire, continuing to play until 1910. Tragically, he was killed in action at Ypres in 1916, shot by a sniper as he was returning from an attempt to regain a lost trench. The Bache memorial trophy, donated by his father in 1919, is a fitting memorial to the School’s greatest all-round sportsman. SH Richardson also left at the end of 1908. He played two games for Warwickshire in 1920 and one for Nottinghamshire in 1925. CL Breeden, captain in 1909, to a large extent had to carry his team. He made 354 runs and took 49 wickets, and only the support of Higgins (217 runs) and Vince (215 runs) prevented the side from being a one-man team. Yet five matches were won out of 12 played, and only two lost, even if some of the draws were in fact narrow escapes from defeat. Breeden scored 89 and took 6 for 41 against Bromsgrove, and 8 for 57 against Denstone. Against Warwickshire Club and Ground (captained by Joseph Manton) he scored 76 and then took all the five wickets to fall. In his School career Breeden scored 1,039 runs and took 139 wickets. He must have been one of the best all-rounders to play for KES. He played five matches for Warwickshire in 1910. Thus ended a golden age in the history of School cricket, tinged with sadness by the fact that many of these fine cricketers were to die in the service of their country in the war that was only a few years away: not only Bache, but also AT Cond, F Eglington, FG Yardley and many others who played cricket for KES. But the impression that remains of Bache, Breeden, Higgins, the Taskers, Turner, Cond and Brown scoring runs galore on a sun-baked pitch at Eastern Road, while Breeden, Bache, Eglington and HS Tasker took the wickets, is one of the most vivid in the history of School cricket.