Alec Watson

Martin Chandler | 7:47am BST 20 September 2020

Published: 2020
Pages: 12
Author: Tebay, Martin
Publisher: Red Rose Books
Rating: 3.5 stars

I suppose that by definition there must be a finite number of Red Rose Cricket Records that Martin Tebay can write monographs about, but he wisely hasn’t set himself any parameters, so I am confident he will find  enough to keep himself going for a few years yet, even though this one is the sixth this year.

Records are, of course, made to be broken, although some by their nature are guaranteed to remain in the book forever. A highest or lowest, or fastest or slowest, is always there to be beaten, but no one can ever again match the first person to achieve a particular feat, and the record belonging to Alec Watson that is featured in this monograph is one of those.

As always in this series the primary vehicle for Tebay’s story is the reconstruction of a single match from long ago, in this case the only First Class match ever played at the delightfully named Sparth Bottoms in Rochdale, the home of Castleton Cricket Club. The ground is sadly no more, but in 1876 Lancashire met Kent there.

Watson was an Irishman by birth and whilst not a mug with the bat his primary cricketing role was a purveyor of right arm medium paced roundarm bowling between 1871 and 1893, over which time he took more than 1,300 wickets at 13 runs apiece. There were mutterings from time to time over the legality of the Watson action, but throughout his long career no umpire was sufficiently concerned as to call him.

As far as the match itself is concerned Lancashire won comfortably by ten wickets, and in their second innings the visitors slumped from 148-6 to 148-9 as Watson became the first Lancashire bowler to take a hat trick.

Having gone back to contemporary sources Tebay gives an interesting account of a low scoring match which is preceded by a short introduction to set the scene. There are two images of Watson, one of his bowling partner William McIntyre and another of the 1876 Lancashire team group. The card of the Kent second innings is included as well as a list, beginning with Watson, of the 35 occasions on which a Lancashire bowler has performed the hat trick.

As with all of these booklets Alec Watson will appeal only to collectors or this interested in Lancashire cricket in days gone by. That however should represent a number large enough to ensure that the thirty individually signed and numbered copies do not hang around for too long, and early ordering via the publisher’s website is recommended.