You Can Quote Me On That: David Frith On Andrew Stoddart
“The finest wing three-quarter of his or probably any other age… just about the most glamorous and cherished cricketer of the 1890s”
David Frith’s glowing appraisal of Andrew Stoddart.
Words: Richard H Thomas
With plenty of cricket action this summer, encroaching on rugby union territory might seem strange. However, the two sports share a collective spirit, in addition to Sammy Woods, Maurice Turnbull, MJK Smith and others who excelled at both. Moreover, British and Irish Lions fans may be interested to know that one of the founding fathers of that great touring concept was a cricket man.
Cricket man, rugby man, but no ordinary man; Andrew Stoddart [pictured above, seated middle row, centre] alone has captained England at both sports and after helping to organise the Lions’ inaugural tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1888, he ended up as captain there too, in the most desperate of circumstances. With tour skipper Robert Seddon and fellow player Jack Anderton, Stoddart visited the Hunter River in West Maitland, New South Wales. Anderton recalls how they had relaxed in an old punt “smoking and taking it easy” while Seddon continued boating. Alarmed when he didn’t return, they were devastated to find his body downriver. Seddon’s grave was recently visited by a delegation including current Lions Sam Warburton, Manu Tuilagi and tour manager Andy Irvine, who described the “great honour to be here to commemorate our first captain”.
Stoddart was capped 10 times in England’s three-quarters between 1885 and 1893, Wisden describing him as runner “with plenty of pace and dodging ability”. As a cricketer, Stoddart made 16 Test appearances between 1888 and 1898; for a decade he was Andrew Flintoff and Jonny Wilkinson in one magnificent, athletic body – a superhuman capable of superhuman deeds. He took up cricket late, but after events on August 4, 1886, he began to take himself seriously, and so did everyone else.
Opening the innings for Hampstead v Stoics at 11.30am, immediately he began to savage the bowling. At lunch, Hampstead were 370-3; no doubt Stoddart, on 230*, dined well. Refreshed, but his appetite for runs unsatisfied, he pressed on until he miscued at 485 and was taken at deep point. Declarations were prohibited, Hampstead were all out for 813, the one-day match was over and without batting the Stoics players returned home to a cheery, “Have a good match, dear?”
The physical effort of the innings was staggering enough – the six-hour marathon comprised an eight (including four overthrows), three fives, 63 fours, 20 threes, 36 twos and 78 singles. Even more staggering are Stoddart’s social activities either side of it. David Frith reports that he spent the evening before dancing, then at the poker table, where a run of luck necessitated his presence “until dawn”. He followed a quick bath with a dip at the local swimming baths before breakfast and his frenzied assault on the Stoics bowlers.
Afterwards he played tennis, spent the evening at the theatre, took a convivial supper, and took to his bed at “around three”. In 24 hours he had shown himself to be simultaneously the most magnificent batsman and socialite of cricket’s Golden Age. “Clearly,” wrote Frith in his excellent Silence of the Heart, “he was a man who loved life and for whom things were going well”. They continued to go well too; within 10 days of his quadruple century, he made 207 for Hampstead and 98 and 116 for Middlesex. His star continued to rise with a Test century at Adelaide in 1892/93, and another at Melbourne in 1894/95 where his 173* was described by Wisden as “the definitive captain’s innings”. England took the series, and Frith details celebratory dinners back home, with Stoddart “bronzed, elated, but modest of bearing, with a banjo conspicuous in his baggage”.
Stoddart’s story does not end well, and Frith eloquently describes his decline where “whisky-and-soda became a constant companion”. Unable to recreate his glories outside of cricket he took his own life aged 52. The tragedy did not stop there; his Coventry grave was damaged by bombing in WWII, then obliterated by redevelopment in the 1970s. Even if no physical trace of him remains, the 2013 Lions will have undoubtedly heard about the first tour 125 years ago, when Andrew Stoddart was pressed into service as captain, never let his team down, and did it with the style of the original Victorian dasher. Perhaps they’ll even claim that England’s opening bat and gallant captain was a rugby man.
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