George Freeman – The Poetry of Motion
Martin Chandler |Published: 1995
Pages: 24
Author: Rosenwater, Irving
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3.5 stars
WG Grace appeared in a First Class cricket match in 1865, shortly before his seventeenth birthday, and it was then more than forty years before his final appearance. Over that time WG played with or against all of the great fast bowlers of his time, including the likes of Tom Richardson of Surrey, Charles Kortright of Essex and the Australians Frederick ‘The Demon’ Spofforth and Ernie Jones.
Richardson was the leading bowler in England for several years, and by repute Kortright, who had a great rivalry with WG, the fastest. Spofforth was the man whose bowling won the famous Oval Test in 1882 and Jones was the man who it is always said bowled a delivery through WG’s beard.
So who was, in WG’s opinion, the finest of all the fast bowlers he faced? The name is not a well known one, and is that of Yorkshire’s George Freeman. His career to all intents and purposes over by 1871 Freeman’s was a star that shone only briefly, but brightly enough for his record in four Roses matches to amount to 40 wickets at a mere 5.70 runs each.
The name of Freeman has been known to few for many years but, inevitably, was familiar to Rosenwater who decided, entirely reasonably, that Freeman needed to be rescued from obscurity and thus he wrote this essay in 1995 to mark the centenary of Freeman’s death.
For a researcher like Rosenwater there was a good deal of material to be found on Freeman and he has put together this one with his usual skill. Although a professional cricketer one of the reasons why Freeman left the game early was to concentrate on a career as an auctioneer, so there is a good deal more to his story that might otherwise be expected and one of the 52 copies of this one (one for every year of Freeman’s life) is well worth tracking down.
Leave a comment