MUNICIPAL CRICKET.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 8949, 15 October 1907, Page 4

MUNICIPAL CRICKET.

pro-rule erii-kei pitches. -During tho season of 1906 there were 452 reserved pitches under the Council's control, including 77 reserved for boys' clubs, and 28,904 matches were played. The average number of applications on Saturdays for the 452 pitches was 716, but many of the rejected applicants found room for some sort of a game on the unreserved ground. The rules are simple. Clubs must keep to their list of fixtures, and if any club abandons three matches in a season, except for bad weather, its permits are cancelled. Boys over 16 are classed as men, and only one master aside is allowed to play in a boys match. The cost of providing the wickets is small, and the benefit to the boys great. Connecting municipal cricket with that played on private grounds is the work of the London Playing Fields Sociey, which in 16 years expended £11,049 on the making of new grounds. The Society provides accomniouation for some 4000 cricketers, and has made 54 football grounds, and 43 tennis courts. The cricket of the Lodon boy is often pathetic. The price of admission to Lords and the Oval is prohibitive, so he plays most of his cricket by instinct and with the help of the halfpenny papers. Jessop is his hero. He has never seen him T>lay, but lie emulates him earnestly." The boy's ideal is to hit "blooming hard, and blooming high, and blooming often," and the "coach" tells him in vain that the player whom he admires so much generally contrives to keep the ball down. But cricket in the London parks has much improved of late years. The street-bred youngster no longer flouts the umpire, nor when he grows older does he catch balls in his hat. Mucli of this improvement is due to the devotion of certain University men, who, w'th great labour, taught East-End boys how to play, and how to behave themselves. A writer in the Times, to whom we are indebted for these facts, says that for years after he left the East End, he received letters from members of the team he had coached. It does not much matter if these boys and lads play well or badly, so long as they get into flannels regularly in summer, and subject themselves to the fine discipline of cricket, and the man who gives his time and money to help them is assisting a good cause.