Lionel ‘Robby’ Robinson (1866-1922), Australian financier made good, settled at Old Buckenham Hall in the Norfolk countryside. There he hosted the 1912 South African tourists, the 1919 Australian AIF team, and most famously and intriguingly Warwick Armstrong’s 1921 Australians. Former England captain Archie MacLaren ran Robinson’s cricket affairs. The ‘country house’ hospitality drew many of the notable players of the era, such as Michael Falcon. Stephen Musk roots his story in Norfolk, and the wider world of cricket, and traces links to MacLaren’s famous win over the 1921 tourists at Eastbourne.

As Europe descended into war over the summer of 1914, cricket in England continued as it had for the preceding few decades. Counties continued with their championship programme, clubs in the North and Midlands maintained their league and cup rivalries whilst less competitive clubs elsewhere enjoyed friendly matches. However, voices were soon raised in criticism of this ‘business as usual’ approach – most notably that of cricket’s Grand Old Man, W.G. Grace. Names became absent from first-class and club scorecards as players left for military service and by the end of the year it was clear that 1915’s cricket season would be very different. And so it would continue for four summers. Rolls of honour lengthened as did the grim lists of cricket’s dead and maimed. Some club cricket did continue in wartime Britain, often amidst bitter disputes as to its appropriateness. Charity matches were organised to align the game with the national war effort. As the British Empire rallied behind the mother country, so cricket around the world became restricted and players from far and wide joined the sad ranks of sacrifice. Cricket emerged into the post-war world initially unsure of itself but the efforts that had been made to sustain the game’s infrastructure during the conflict ensured that it would experience a second golden age between the wars.

Born and raised in Norfolk and educated at Oxford, George Raikes (1873-1966) was an all-round sportsman, gaining four ‘blues’ for soccer and two for cricket in the 1890s as well as being effective on the golf course and the tennis court. As a goalkeeper his reviews were almost all ‘rave’ and it was no surprise when he earned four caps for England – what was a surprise was that he retired abruptly at the age of 23 to enter the Church. However, his religious duties did not entirely prevent him from playing cricket and he re-appeared for Norfolk in 1904, re-invented as an inspirational and astute skipper, leading Norfolk to two Minor Counties Championships in his four years as captain; and, intriguingly, as one of the first ‘modern’ leg spinners – developing and retaining control over a variety of deliveries that bamboozled Minor Counties batsmen across the country. This book aims to place Raikes’ sporting deeds in the context of the rise of professionalism in soccer, the inter-play between religion and sport at the end of the 19th century and the development of wrist spin. Alas, it does not claim to understand the theory behind his occasional use of the ‘slow beamer’ as a stock delivery...

Frank Mitchell (1872-1935) in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras was a shining sporting star who dazzled all too briefly. Whilst showing great potential at cricket as a mature undergraduate, he reached the ultimate position in rugby when still at Cambridge in becoming captain of the England XV. Cricket, though, was a more lasting interest. Mitchell achieved some notoriety through his actions as captain of Cambridge in the Varsity match of 1896, when he sought to avoid the Oxford XI having to follow-on by instructing his bowler to bowl no balls and wides. His earlier attacking style had already brought him, as a Yorkshireman, to the attention of Lord Hawke, with much of his limited first-class cricket then being played for Yorkshire. Hawke gave him a place on his tour to South Africa in 1898/99, which made Mitchell, retrospectively, an English Test cricketer. He served with the army during part of the Boer War and, after a wonderful season back with Yorkshire in 1901, he emigrated to South Africa. Working for Abe Bailey, the South African entrepreneur, led Mitchell to captain the South African team to England in 1904 which, though playing no official tests, had a successful tour. Thereafter he worked as a stockbroker, but a surprise recall as captain of the South African team for the triangular tour of 1912 caused more controversy. Without much personal income, Mitchell struggled with the requirements of amateurism, but he again joined the army in 1914, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Later he made a living from the precarious tin industry in Nigeria and from writing frequent columns for the cricketer. Some of the aspirations expressed in his articles would remain welcome today. Frank Mitchell was a man of many parts, whose contributions to English and South African sport made him for short periods a notable hero.

Much has been written about 1914 and the drift to war. This book examines what it was like playing and watching cricket that year and how the eventual coming of war affected the game. It challenges the common but lazy notion that the war brought a dramatic end to the era of sweetness, light and eternal sunshine that was the golden age of amateur cricket.

Michael Falcon (1888-1976) was educated at Harrow and Cambridge and proved himself to be a good enough fast bowler to be selected fourteen times for the Gentlemen. He declined to qualify by residence to play for Middlesex, preferring instead to play for his beloved Norfolk in the Minor Counties Championship. In this competition his exploits as a hard-hitting, fast-bowling all-rounder made him a dominant figure in Norfolk elevens. Appointed captain in 1912, he was still in office in 1946; he was the only man to skipper his county before the First World War and after the Second. An astute and popular leader, he was worth his place in the team to the end, finishing top of the batting averages in his final season, when aged 58. Thought of highly enough by the authorities to be co-opted on to the MCC Committee at the early age of 26, he was the only bowler of genuine pace to sit on the sub-committee which ruled on bodyline. He is most famous for the part he played in helping Archie MacLaren’s eleven to defeat Warwick Armstrong’s previously invincible 1921 tourists. Informed opinion suggests that his refusal to play for Middlesex cost him the chance to play Test cricket, but his loyalty to Norfolk was paramount and he never expressed any regrets. As a Tory M.P. and a landowning grandee, one might expect him to have been a somewhat remote and forbidding character, but he was a quiet and modest man with a love of the game which gave him a bond with the common cricketer. On one occasion he was more than ready to lead a singalong with the players of a village cricket club. Stephen Musk tells a story of privilege, public service and the pastime of cricket.