The Hampdenshire Wonder | Page 7

first Colts' match.
The three years that had intervened had not been prosperous years for
Hampdenshire. Their team was a one-man team. Bobby Maisefield was
developing into a fine bat (and other counties were throwing out

inducements to him, trying to persuade him to qualify for first-class
cricket), but he found no support, and Hampdenshire was never looked
upon as a coming county. The best of the minor counties in those years
were Staffordshire and Norfolk.
In the Colts' match Stott's analysis ran: overs maidens runs wickets
11.3 7 16 7
and reference to the score-sheet, which is still preserved among the
records of the County Club, shows that six of the seven wickets were
clean bowled. The Eleven had no second innings; the match was drawn,
owing to rain. Stott has told me that the Eleven had to bat on a drying
wicket, but after making all allowances, the performance was certainly
phenomenal.
After this match Stott was, of course, played regularly. That year
Hampdenshire rose once more to their old position at the head of the
minor counties, and Maisefield, who had been seriously considering
Surrey's offer of a place in their Eleven after two years' qualification by
residence, decided to remain with the county which had given him his
first chance.
During that season Stott did not record any performance so remarkable
as his feat in the Colts' match, but his record for the year was
eighty-seven wickets with an average of 9-31; and it is worthy of notice
that Yorkshire made overtures to him, as he was qualified by birth to
play for the northern county.
I think there must have been a wonderful esprit de corps among the
members of that early Hampdenshire Eleven. There are other evidences
beside this refusal of its two most prominent members to join the ranks
of first-class cricket. Lord R--, the president of the H.C.C.C., has told
me that this spirit was quite as marked as in the earlier case of Kent. He
himself certainly did much to promote it, and his generosity in making
good the deficits of the balance sheet had a great influence on the
acceleration of Hampdenshire's triumph.
In his second year, though Hampdenshire were again champions of the

second-class counties, Stott had not such a fine average as in the
preceding season. Sixty-one wickets for eight hundred and sixty-eight
(average 14-23) seems to show a decline in his powers, but that was a
wonderful year for batsmen (Maisefield scored seven hundred and
forty-two runs, with an average of forty-two) and, moreover, that was
the year in which Stott was privately practising his new theory.
It was in this year that three very promising recruits, all since become
famous, joined the Eleven, viz.: P. H. Evans, St. John Townley, and
Flower the fast bowler. With these five cricketers Hampdenshire fully
deserved their elevation into the list of first-class counties. Curiously
enough, they took the place of the old champions, Gloucestershire, who,
with Somerset, fell back into the obscurity of the second-class that
season.
IV
I must turn aside for a moment at this point in order to explain the "new
theory" of Stott's, to which I have referred, a theory which became in
practice one of the elements of his most astounding successes.
Ginger Stott was not a tall man. He stood only 5 ft. 5 in. in his socks,
but he was tremendously solid; he had what is known as a "stocky"
figure, broad and deep-chested. That was where his muscular power lay,
for his abnormally long arms were rather thin, though his huge hands
were powerful enough.
Even without his "new theory" Stott would have been an exceptional
bowler. His thoroughness would have assured his success. He studied
his art diligently, and practised regularly in a barn through the winter.
His physique, too, was a magnificent instrument. That long, muscular
body was superbly steady on the short, thick legs. It gave him a
fulcrum, firm, apparently immovable. And those weirdly long, thin
arms could move with lightning rapidity. He always stood with his
hands behind him, and then--as often as not without even one
preliminary step--the long arm would flash round and the ball be
delivered, without giving the batsman any opportunity of watching his
hand; you could never tell which way he was going to break. It was

astonishing, too, the pace he could get without any run. Poor Wallis
used to call him the "human catapult"; Wallis was always trying to find
new phrases.
The theory first came to Stott when he was practising at the nets. It was
a windy morning, and he noticed that several times the balls he bowled
swerved in the air. When those swerving balls came they were almost
unplayable.
Stott made no remark to anyone--he was bowling to