Cannot Play for Nuts or Toffee

Denaby Main 103 for 5

W Moore 22, J Palmer 34*

Doncaster West End 42

Truman 3-13, Hoyland 3-11

The man who persuaded Doncaster West End that they can play cricket was no gentleman, for he wilfully, and I am afraid with malice aforthought deceived them. They cannot play for nuts, or as the poet puts it, toffee.

And the man who invented the builders gentle art was also no gentleman, for they are buildings some houses just down the road outside my study window, and a joinery genius is putting in a stair case. From the noise he is making I conclude that he is using a sledge hammer and nails as big as the Firth bridge rivets. He is, moreover, apparently a copy of the village blacksmith, and is giving the muscles of his brawny arms an extra long innings. All of which renders it exceedingly difficult for me to collect thoughts and to realise where I are in a manner of speaking.

But this is a digression. I went to Denaby on Saturday to see the Doncaster West End club perform, and I never saw such a performance in my life. Denaby won the toss, and I am firmly of opinion that if they had not closed their innings when they did they would have been batting now. The bowling of the Doncaster star artistes was ridiculously weak; it was a positive pity to ask some of the poor fellows to bowl at all, but bad as the bowling was, and it couldn’t have been “badder” in a manner of speaking, it was nothing like the fielding. There was one youth who was in the habit of standing still every time until the ball had passed him, and then he ran after it at a rate calculated to result in dislocation of the neck had he tumbled in his flight. When the cricket ball came his way he made him in his way by giving it a bit of a start. He may have been afraid of hurting his fingers. One never knows.

Moore and Routledge went to the wickets to open Denaby’s innings, and they were not long before they completely collared the bowling. Moore with some strong clean strokes on their off-site started getting twos and threes almost directly, and Routledge with one or two fine drives also began to get runs freely. While the pair of them banged the bowling about until a gentleman named Johnson bowled an accidental straight one, and Routledge was so overcome by surprise that he missed it and was bowled. Mr. James Ambler was the next batsman, and he began by getting well under a ball from Mr Johnson, and skying it almost out of the gentleman’s sight. So they put another bowler on for Mr. Ambler and it steadied him a bit. But nothing can stop the run getting. The batsmen scored as they liked, and were aided by some awful fielding. One man however, demonstrated satisfactory that he could sometimes catch a ball, and he compelled Moore to retire. This brought in Palmer, and that hero forthwith began to lay about him right and left. It was no use changing bowlers for Palmer, he scored freely off all of them.

An unintentional straight one from wood caused Ambler’s retirement and Truman’s advent. Of course the one and only “Lal” went in for some hitting, but again he failed to smash the parson’s windows. His was a short life and a merry one, and was terminated by the discovery of another Doncaster genius who knew how to catch a cricket ball. When Truman left two other batsmen followed one another rapidly. Newton was bowled after scoring a single, and Roberts who succeeded him had only made a single when the captain declared closed, and Doncaster’s painful exhibition in the field came to a close.