The Hambledon Men/Old Clarke
OLD CLARKE
By the Editor
I have thought it well to bring together here a few testimonies as to the sterling merits and characteristics of Old Clarke, to follow his shrewd and valuable letter. I begin with Mr. Haygarth's memoir of him from vol. iii of Lillywhite's Cricket Scores and Biographies, against the score of North v. South on July 11 and 12, 1836.
'William Clarke's first match at Lord's, he being now thirty-seven years of age, thus appearing on this celebrated spot very late in life indeed for one who was afterwards so successful. His next match at Lord's did not take place till 1843, and, what is more extraordinary, he was never chosen for the Players in their match against the Gentlemen till 1846, at which period he had reached the mature age of forty-seven, and had already participated in the game for thirty seasons! He began cricket very young, his name being found in the Nottingham Eleven in 1816, but it was long before his merit was discovered at "Head Quarters". His bowling, which was slow under-hand, was wonderfully accurate in length and precision of pitch, cruelly deceptive, with a twist from the leg to the off, and getting up remarkably well. He obtained many wickets by the impatience of his adversaries, running in and trying to hit balls away for runs which could easily have been played down had the batsman stayed his ground. His general knowledge of the game and his skill in managing the field was also wonderful. He seemed to find out the defects of his adversaries' batting almost as soon as they had received a few balls, and he would arrange his field accordingly, generally with success. His only fault in management was that he would continue to bowl too long, being very unwilling to be changed, "always expecting to get a wicket with his next over". As a batsman he made some good scores in excellent style, hitting freely and well, though his average will not be found high, but he was often "not out". In 1846 he was engaged as a practice bowler by the Marylebone Club at Lord's (which, indeed, was the means of bringing him into notice), and remained there a few seasons. In 1846 also he originated the "All England matches".
'Altogether, Clarke participated in the game, from first to last, for forty-one seasons which has been done by few if any cricketers in matches of note. His career, therefore, may be considered as one of the most wonderful on record, for (as before stated) he did not come much into notice in the great matches till he was about forty-seven years of age, long before which time many a good cricketer has abandoned the game, as being too old. Clarke also greatly excelled in the game of fives, and met with a severe accident when between twenty and thirty years of age while so engaged, the ball striking him in the right eye, causing him to lose the sight of it. This was, of course, a great disadvantage to him during his cricketing career.
'He also had a good knowledge of betting on races, &c., and was a crafty and fox-headed cricketer altogether. His likeness, an exceedingly good one, by John Corbett Anderson, has been published by Frederick Lillywhite. There is also a good portrait of him in The Cricket Field [see opposite p. 174]. Clarke was originally by trade a bricklayer, but afterwards a licensed victualler, and for some years was landlord of the Bell Inn at Nottingham, opening in 1838 the famous Trent Bridge Ground, and retiring from business in 1847. He was born at Nottingham, December 24, 1798. Height 5 ft. 9 in., and weight 13 st. 11 lbs. Latterly, however, he lived in London, where he died, at Priory Lodge, Wandsworth Road, August 25, 1856, aged 57. He is buried in Norwood Cemetery ... At the end of the year Clarke fell down (while playing) and broke his arm. It was thought he would not have been able to appear any more, but he continued to do so till the last year of his life.'
An article in the Quarterly for October, 1884, testifies not only to Clarke's technical skill, but his humours too: 'About 1836, W. Clarke, perhaps the most famous slow bowler of the century, appeared at Lord's (making his début, oddly enough, when he was 37 years of age), and for many years held a most commanding position from the skill with which he used to defeat even the best batsmen. He carried, we think, further than any bowler before him, the theory of bowling not merely to hit the wicket but to get his opponent out. He used to study each man's play, find out his weak points, and cruelly press his knowledge. "We shall have a 'haccident', sir, soon, I know we shall!"[1] was his favourite expression when a batsman had apparently mastered him—nd accident we are bound to state there usually was. "How do you get out Mr. A.?" he was once asked. "Nothing easier," he replied. "I bowl him three balls to make him proud of his forward play, and then with the fourth I pitch shorter twist and catch him at the slip."
'If Clarke had a fault, it was the somewhat English one of never knowing when he was defeated. He was always sanguine of a wicket next over. Lord Frederick Beau clerk had the same failing, if failing it be. "I knew I should get you!" he once said to Mr. Ward. "Yes, but I have scored eighty," was the reply. It has been the same with other celebrated bowlers. "Do you not think we had better have a change? " was once said to one of the best slow round-arm amateur bowlers of the last decade, by a somewhat weary cover-point. "Yes, I think we had—I will go on at the other end."'
In The Cricket Field Mr. Pycroft wrote of the veteran thus: 'He is a man who thinks for himself, and knows men and manners, and has many wily devices, "splendide mendax." "I beg your pardon, sir," he one day said to a gentleman taking guard, "but ain't you Harrow?"
"Then we shan't want a man down there," he said, addressing a fieldsman; "stand for the Harrow drive between point and middle wicket." The time to see Clarke is on the morning of a match. While others are practising, he walks round with his hands under the flaps of his coat, reconnoitring his adversaries' wicket.'
I add further particulars from Mr. Pycroft's Oxford Memories:—'"Clarke's," said Barker, the Nottingham umpire, "was only the old bowling we had before the days of Lillywhite, only it had lain fallow till the old players who were used to it had passed away, and then it came up new to puzzle all England." Clarke bore witness to the same effect. "Warsop of Nottingham," said he, "was an excellent bowler in my style, and yet better was the celebrated William Lambert of Surrey, from whom I learnt more than from any man alive."
'As to Clarke, although he was too old and heavy to field his own bowling well—and this is indispensable for a slow bowler—I doubt if any bowler of my time ever exercised more influence on a game, nor was Clarke ever "found out"; he never was beaten till the last. You might sometimes score from Clarke rather freely, as you might from any bowler I ever knew. But while quite in his play, it required much patience and no little knowledge of the game to play him. I often hear it said, "Clarke would be nowhere in these days," yet Tinley, Mr. V. Walker, and Mr. Ridley, though very far inferior, on their best days have done no little with slows—and slows too of low delivery—whereas Clarke always maintained that a certain elevation was of the very essence of slow bowling; and Clarke, like Mr. Budd, delivered from his hip. Clarke said, "My success depends not on what is called a good length, but on the exact pitch, the one 'blind spot', according to the reach and style of the player." He was also always on the wicket with great spin and twist. "Also," said Clarke, "I can vary my pace without betraying the change by my action, and this few fast bowlers can do; and if a man takes liberties with me, I can send in a very fast one as a surprise; or I could not defend myself against a hitter." As to stepping in, Clarke's elevation was such that you could not judge him till very late; and he could foil you by a twist and a ball pitched a little wide, and then there was a case of stumping made easy.'
In Daft's Kings of Cricket there are also some very human reminiscences of the old man:—'I was well acquainted with William Clarke, who for years kept the Trent Bridge Inn and Ground. He was, as most people know, Captain and Secretary of the famous All England Eleven, before George Parr succeeded to both these offices. Clarke played until he was quite an old man; and as he had only one eye (the sight of the other having been destroyed at fives), George Parr used to say that in his latter days he played not by sight but by sound. The old man was very queer-tempered in these days, too (as I have since found to be the case with most of us cricketers as we grow older), and was consequently a considerable trial to the patience of many of the younger members of his elevens . . .
'Clarke's delivery was a peculiar one. He came up to the crease with the usual "trot" which nearly all slow under-hand bowlers adopt, but instead of delivering the ball from the height of, or between, the hips, he at the last moment bent back his elbow, bringing the ball almost under his right armpit, and delivered the ball, thus, from as great a height as it was possible to attain and still to be under-hand. He was by this delivery able to make the ball get up higher and quicker from the pitch than he would have done if he had delivered it in the same way as other lob-bowlers. I have often heard old cricketers say that they have received many balls from Clarke which got up quite "nasty" from the pitch, with a lot of screw on them. He seldom bowled two balls alike, and could vary his pace and pitch in a wonderful manner. He was able to detect the weak points of a batsman quicker, perhaps, than any bowler that ever lived . . .
'The veteran would always insist on going in to bat in one particular place—two wickets down, I think it was—but in a match in which George Parr, instead of himself, was captain, he was put down several places lower on the list. However, when his usual turn came, he stepped out, padded and gloved, and the batsman who was next to go in, arriving at the wicket at the same time, was obliged to return to the pavilion. But as years went on, the old gentleman dropped down to the last place of all; and being run out once by the batsman at the other end (old Tom Box), when it came to the second innings he put on his pads to go in first, swearing he would never again go in within ten of the fool who had run him out in the previous innings!'
Old Clarke has been dead fifty years. He took a wicket with the last ball he bowled. I wonder how many cricketers have done that.
- ↑ See p. 168.