Grace’s dismissal gives Spout House another claim to fame

10:50am Tuesday 16th June 2009

By Mike Amos

SELDOM far from these Ionic columns, Spout House Cricket Club made a twopage debut in Saturday’s Guardian. Thus was a remarkable statistic revealed about the man reckoned England’s greatest cricketer.

We knew, of course, that the Ainsley family’s adjoining and utterly unchanged pub was a “peaceful drinking Arcadia”, that the Spout House pitch was “one of the strangest in the world” and that Prince Harry was bowled for 16 by 12-year-old Spout sprout Peter Thompson.

What, though, of W G Grace’s appearance on those eternal slopes, a game which for The Doctor appears to have been uphill all the way?

Grace, says the Guardian, was bowled by 28-stone George Miller, the Fangdale blacksmith, for a hairy duck.

His brother, the 32-stone Bilsdale miller, watched appreciatively from the boundary.

Though in none of the cricket books on these shelves – one records an opposing wicket keeper’s view that Grace seldom washed behind his ears – the information comes from William Ainslie, Spout’s sedulous secretary since 1946, and must therefore be true. William still has the score book.

The Guardian piece also mentions that forthcoming attractions at the ground between Stokesley and Helmsley include the visit on June 28 of King James I CC from Darlington. No matter that they’re from Bishop Auckland, it is clearly the place to be.

STILL in the years of Grace, The Dalesman carries a piece on K S Ranjitsinhji, better remembered as Ranji, the first Indian to play cricket for England.

In his first test, in 1896, Grace was out for two and Ranji hit 62, a feat said to have done little to lengthen Grace’s notoriously short temper. In the second innings, Ranji made 154 not out, that year shattering Grace’s record of 2,781 runs in a season, averaging 58.

He remains the only batsman to have scored a century in both innings on the same day – and against Yorkshire – the first to hit 3,000 runs in a season and probably the first to hit 285 after spending the night fishing.

In North Yorkshire, however, he is particularly remembered at Gilling East, near Helmsley, where his Cambridge tutor became vicar and Ranji – known at Cambridge as Smith but from 1907 HRH the Maharajah Jam Singh of Nawangar – became a regular participant in village games.

On one occasion, it’s said, he forwent a county match in order to play in a fund raiser for Gilling church clock, a game in which his Sussex team mate Charles Burgess Fry also featured.

Another time, Ranji was due to play at nearby Hovingham Hall, but missed the only train of the day from London to Gilling.

(There were trains from London to Gilling?) Never short of a few rupees, the Maharajah hired a private train. He arrived two hours late, ready for the fray.

WHILE still in the Helmsley area, it should be recorded that Harome again reached the last 32 of the National Village Cup on Sunday with victory over our friends from Barton, near Darlington. On 51-4, Barton were rescued by Danny Shoulder – his 71 including six sixes, to finish on 143. Harome, replying, were 110-9 before conspiring to drop the same chap three times – “dollies”, says Danny – and having him caught of a no-ball. Harome won by one wicket. Whether any of the dollies were dropped by the old feller behind the stumps is, perhaps happily, not recorded.

THE incomparable Brian Hunt, for 34 years Durham County Cricket Club’s scorer and archivist, continued his testimonial year on Thursday with a do at Chester-le-Street CC.

Like Samson, the little feller had been an hairy man – “a Shirley Temple lookalike,” suggested former skipper David Boon in an improbable email.

“The used tennis ball look,” said the BBC’s Jeff Brown of the latest model.

Dale Benkenstein and Will Scott, successor skippers, spoke eloquently and affectionately. The incident involving the 20- stone lady of the Zimbabwean night, previously chronicled hereabouts, was again related.

The best story, however, came from Tom Moffatt, the testimonial committee convenor, concerning a trip to Somerset.

A day to kill between Championship and Sunday matches, Tom, Brian and Brian’s wife Nancy went off to explore Lyme Regis.

Compiling potted biographies of every Durham player who ever was, Brian insisted he could find important statistics from a stone in Sidmouth cemetery.

“We looked until it was dark, found plenty of the chap’s relatives but no sign of him,” recalled Tom.

“A few weeks later I got a call from Brian. He’d just discovered they’d buried the feller in Darlington, after all.

■ Durham cricketers are also speaking at a do for Brian at Philadelphia CC on July 2 (£4, including pie and peas) and at Bishop Auckland Golf Club on July 7 – four course dinner, £25.

TOM Moffat, former Durham wicketkeeper, treasurer and executive committee member, is himself completing a book on how the county gained first class status.

It’ll include an inside account of the abortive 1985 attempt to merge Durham and Northumberland and of Durham’s own aspirations from 1989.

As well as running the Wonder’s testimonial committee, and much else, he’s also recently returned to brass band playing after 64 years. On Saturday he helped organise, and played in, a Proms in the Park evening at Chester-le-Street.

FOLLOWING last Saturday’s annual ceremonial at Buckingham Palace, a horse called Changing the Guard won the 3.45 at York at 12-1.

“An each way double on those two would have put a smile on any royalist’s face,”

notes Martin Birtle, in Billingham. That same afternoon, Roker Park relived former glories by winning, 14-1, at Doncaster.

“What odds on a horse called St James’ Park troubling the judge?” asks Martin.

ON the bar at Saltburn’s gloriously situated golf club, a jar invites donations towards the Great North Air Ambulance from anyone landing in the “lady captain’s bunker” at the second.

The worthiness of that aerial cause would particularly have been appreciated on Friday afternoon when, no terrestrial ambulance being nearby, the GNAA landed on the first tee to take an unwell member to hospital.

Ironically, it exactly coincided with the funeral in Ayr of former Saltburn fivehandicapper and Northern Echo reporter Ian Nelson.

Yet more ironically, Eddie Kelly, the patient, was a good friend and playing partner of Ian’s. Happily, he’s now back home.

Perhaps most ironic of all, however, is that we picked up that paragraph at a little nineteenth hole wake for Ian on Sunday lunchtime. He’d have approved: Ian didn’t miss much, either.

WHILE the sports pages kicked heels to see if Saltburn lad and former Boro favourite Tony Mowbray would become Celtic’s next manager – former Celt Tosh Mackinlay expressed himself “more than confident” – the news pages of last Friday’s Evening Times in Glasgow reported that 1960’s Sunderland favourite Harry Hood is selling Buckfast cheesecake at his restaurant in Blantyre. It ran to 200 words. Not much happening on the news front, either.