Rawmarsh 123 for 8 Denaby United 60

Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 11 June 1904

Denaby Done In.

I, of course, expected that somewhere before the end of the season Denaby United would, following the lead of Napoleon and other great people, meet their Waterloo, but I did not expect it to come on Saturday, nor to happen at Rawmarsh.

Yet, the League leaders were well and truly beaten by the folk who inhabit that curious township on the hill, a team which, if I remember rightly, in the old days did not claim to play cricket, but had a knack of beating those who could.

Rawmarsh have rather been left out of the calculation in “sizing up” the prospects of this year’s competition for the championship, and it may be by way of protest for this oversight they on Saturday made a perfectly shocking example of the team which has declared to win.

There were no half-measures about the chastisement they inflicted. They smote the Philistines from Denaby hip and thigh. Rawmarsh, who batted first, made 113, Nixon, the professional, leading the way with 20. After him the whole of the team played very evenly, six of them running into double figures.

Then came Denaby, and with them disaster. P. Bury, the man who, with the help of good fortune, beat Mexboro’ the week before, scored 22. “Extras” made four, and the other ten members of the team 23 between them.

There were more “ducks” in the Denaby score than ever I thought to live to see, and the whole bag of tricks were not for 49, a calamity which requires a second breath before it can be realised.

I must leave Denaby to explain their downfall, for I have been no good at inventing excuses since I retired from politics. I only know that Nixon took six wickets for 18 runs, Harry Outram four for 25, and that on carefully looking over the Denaby score I find that very nearly a first team was doing duty for the club. Further, it was Denaby—not Conisboro’—who were dismissed for 60.

At Rawmarsh. Foster played good cricket for their respective scores. A. Jepson took six wickets for five runs, and T. Payling four for 15.