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

29 hearted. Barrow was a persevering captain and wicket-keeper. GR Richards scored 85 runs and took 19 wickets, in each case more than anyone else. 1918 was no better. We do not have full results. Of the six matches that we know of, five were lost. LG Clayton, the captain, did his best, but the team was not up to the standard required. RG Seldon scored 96 runs, Clayton 83, but both at low averages. NA Carr’s leg- breaks gained 45 cheap wickets. The closest match of the season was against Dover College: Carr and Seldon both took five wickets to dismiss Dover for 69, but KES were all out six runs short of this total. RG Seldon had two years as captain, 1919 and 1920, in which a start was made on the road back, and the rise to another great period began. Eleven matches were played in 1919, and though seven were lost, three were won. The three victories were all chiefly due to the all-round-performance of the captain – 6 for 25 and 47 not out against Birmingham University, 85 and 4 for 40 against Bromsgrove, and 87 not out and four more wickets against the Old Edwardians. Seldon’s overall record of 385 runs at an average of 48.12 showed that he was by far the best batsman since the days of Ball and Higgins at the beginning of the decade. No one else was in the same class, though NA Carr made some runs and took 41 wickets. This was Carr’s last season; in later life he became a county court judge. In 1920 further progress was made. RG Seldon, to whom a lot of the credit for this is due, was again the leading batsman, though his aggregate (245 runs) and average declined as compared with the previous season. Two players who had played a few matches in 1919 improved greatly: HF Webb made 190 runs and KG Kent took 25 wickets. (Kent left School at the end of this season, but went on to play nine matches for Warwickshire between 1927 and 1931.) Some more young players began to be noticed – R Pascal, a good batsman and a useful slow bowler, and JE Mayell, a slow left-hander of promise. The batting was indifferent during the early part of the season, but against the Old Edwardians KES compiled a fine total of 226 for 8 declared (Webb 56, Seldon 40, and W Jackson, the wicket-keeper, 42), and the Old Edwardians were dismissed for 198. So ended a difficult decade. A lot of the problems experienced can be put down to war conditions. Under HL Higgins and EL Hill, and again under RG Seldon, fair seasons were enjoyed, and only in 1917 and 1918 was the situation really disastrous. Several other outstanding players, such as BCC Tipper, JE Catherall, and NA Carr, belong to this period.