SJS
Hall of Fame Member
Yes. its very nice. One of my favourite passage is early in the book where he talks of Hirst's fabulous bowling in 1901, particularly against Essex where he took 7 for 12 and 5 for 17 in the two innings. The whole year was great and Thomson writes of Hirst's reaction on being reminded of those "triumphs"....
"Ah", he said,"you should have seen my figures in that Somerset match - one for 189!"
Thomson does not dwell on the fabulous memory of the great left hander in remembering the exact number of runs scored off him so readily half a century ago and goes on to tell about the match in which he was so 'maltreated' by Somerset in their second innings, after the miserable 87 in their first essay (and a lead to Yorkshire of 238). Open up the cricketarchives and you find the score card to see that they scored 630 in the second knock and then rubbed iot in by bundling Yorks out for 113.
But Thomson does not give us that much of stats. He just tells how.....
.....when the last Yorkshire wicket fell, Sammy Woods, usually a loquacious character, did not speak, but rushed out of the Headingley ground, leaped into a cab, set off furiously towards the hotel where his team was staying, rushed into the bar and finally broke silence with one resplendent word: 'Champagne!'
The period you will remember, was that of the Boer War and many a cricketer was soldiering on the South African veldt. FS Jackson...was an officer in the Yorkshire Yeomanry, and....was inspecting his lines. The barbed wire suddenly twitched and from its lowest strand crawled a scrubby, unshaven figure in ragged khaki. who was plainly either a scarecrow or an escaped prisoner of war.
Inside the wire the scarecrow scrambled upright and saluted.
"Colonel Jackson, sir?"
"Thats so."
"Then excuse me, sir." The scarecrow's voice, speaking in the rich tones of the West Riding, expressed the grave conditions demanded by a military situation. "How did Yorkshire get on again' Somerset"
"It was a bad do. Yorkshire lost by 279 runs"
"Well, by gow ------"
"Here, where are you off to?"
"I'm off back to t'Boers !"
The period you will remember, was that of the Boer War and many a cricketer was soldiering on the South African veldt. FS Jackson...was an officer in the Yorkshire Yeomanry, and....was inspecting his lines. The barbed wire suddenly twitched and from its lowest strand crawled a scrubby, unshaven figure in ragged khaki. who was plainly either a scarecrow or an escaped prisoner of war.
Inside the wire the scarecrow scrambled upright and saluted.
"Colonel Jackson, sir?"
"Thats so."
"Then excuse me, sir." The scarecrow's voice, speaking in the rich tones of the West Riding, expressed the grave conditions demanded by a military situation. "How did Yorkshire get on again' Somerset"
"It was a bad do. Yorkshire lost by 279 runs"
"Well, by gow ------"
"Here, where are you off to?"
"I'm off back to t'Boers !"
