Oh my Sugg and my Sharp long ago!

I do not watch cricket as much as some other sports, and have never tried photographing it. For a couple of seasons I was following my local amateur rugby league club, Liverpool Buccaneers, during the summer, and although they decided not to field a team this year, I did not take up another sport or attach myself to a club between the end of the rugby union County Championships in May, and the pre season fixtures for football in July.

However, with my home county, Surrey, playing at Liverpool last week, and people I know from London coming up for a day's play it seemed a good time to renew my acquaintance with the game.

Liverpool Cricket Club (not at the current ground) hosted the city's first First Class game, Lancashire v Surrey in 1866. There has been a hiatus in Surrey's visits to the city since then, with one of our party reporting that the fixture had last been played at Aigburth in 1905

When I came to Liverpool as a student in the 1980s, I heard tales of crowds at Aigburth being quite lively. A fellow student reported he had watched his home county of Gloucestershire in a one day game, sitting in front of a boisterous group with an extensive repertoire of combine harvester songs. He was not put off by the experience, as he worked as a GP in the City for some years, and served for a term on the City Council. With little riding on the game, results the previous week having seen Lancashire relegated and Surrey avoid the drop, the crowd was much more subdued. My friend and I attracted a few looks that would not have been out of place in a library when we applauded a particularly well hit six.

I did not take a proper camera, as I think the ground regulations do not permit it, although I took a couple of pictures of the ground with my mobile. I noticed a couple of official looking photographers (possibly press, as they were only at the morning session) next to the sight screen. I have never been keen on this vantage point, preferring to be square on to the wicket. I imagine it is easier to take pictures end on, as there is little sideways movement.

As for the title of this post, the sentence is of course taken from Francis Thompson's poem At Lord's, replacing the Lancashire and England batsmen A.N. Hornby and R.G. Barlow, with two great all rounders from Liverpool from a slightly later era. Frank Sugg and Jack Sharp both represented Lancashire at cricket and Everton at football, and England in both sports, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries: Sugg was Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1890, and Sharp was a County Championship winner with Lancashire in 1904 and FA Cup winner with Everton in 1906. As if that were not enough, both ran successful sports outfitters' shops in Liverpool until they died in the 1930s, Sharp in Whitechapel, and Sugg barely the distance of a boundary away away in Lord Street.