Cricket: AGM (1896)

Post date: Jan 02, 2012 6:44:23 PM

The following report is from the Wateringbury Parish magazine of April 1896

THE   CRICKET   CLUB.

The annual general meeting of the club was held at the Institute on the 26th, when Mr. A. Starmer and Mr. P. H. Copley were re-elected respectively Vice-captain and Secretary, and Mr. Amos Baker was elected Treasurer, vice Mr. Whyman.   The accounts showed a deficit of about £6, but it appeared subscriptions for last year, amounting to nearly £7, were still to be collected.  

Mr. Welsh started an interesting discussion of reasons to explain the paucity of members compared with the population of the place, and hoped the club might do something to bring on young players. 

Probably the true explanation of scarcity of playing members lies in the fact that there is no field available for the use of schoolboys and young lads, where, with some encouragement from the masters and others, they might practice football and cricket and athletic sports systematically. This touches upon a real want in the parish. Everyone knows the saying that the battle of Waterloo was won upon the playing-fields of Eton; and there can be no doubt that the education of out-door games is quite as valuable as that obtained in the schoolroom. Powers of pluck, endurance and skill, together with the arts of obeying and commanding and keeping-temper among one's fellows, which form so prominent and successful a part of education in schools of higher grade, cannot be acquired by National School boys whose only playground is the roadway. Marbles and peg-tops are a poor substitute—succeeded by strolling and smoking. The morale of the parish naturally suffers. A couple of acres of fairly flat ground is the great desideratum—even if it cost £20 or £30 a-year the money would be well spent. But perhaps this is scarcely a matter that comes within the purview of the Cricket Club.

Also see Cricket club started and Cricket: 'bricks against beer'