Re: Picture Quiz & Gallery: ~ Some Things (Never) Change ...

by PeterCS Sun 15 Jul 2012, 00:29

All correct as far as identified.

Can you say how 10 and 11 stood out in the Series?

I might as well complete your IDs in 06:

Spoiler:

by Allan D Sun 15 Jul 2012, 09:11

Spoiler:

by JGK Sun 15 Jul 2012, 09:49

Bardsley was John Newcombe's uncle.

by Allan D Sun 15 Jul 2012, 13:38

Warren Bardsley is the oldest Australian (and 3rd oldest player overall) to score a Test century but what other Test record does he hold?

Spoiler:

by PeterCS Sun 15 Jul 2012, 14:05

I think that sort of covers pictures most of pictures 02-11, or possibly 02-12.

Remaining questions:

What of a positive ID for 08, 09, 12 and (so far unmentioned) 14?

Where were 15 and 16 taken, and what does 15 also tell us?

btw: Fry was (like Ranji) in his 40th year when he finally captained England (and made his last appearances) - older than Jessop. While most batsmen struggled in watery conditions through the Tournament, his batting in particular was pretty much shot to nervous ribbons until that final, partly decisive innings at the Oval - there are many more stories to tell of that and of his captaincy during the Tournament!

His captaincy was much criticised (when selected, and more so for a series of odd-seeming decisions) - as I said, much more could be told. It is likely he got the gig in the first place because he had been largely instrumental in setting up the Triangular Tournament, encouraging the (partly forthcoming) sponsorship from South Africa, doing informal unpaid PR (so to speak) for the event, etc.

I read Fry's Autobiography lately ("Life Worth Living") - a fascinating, urbane, unreliable, in places hair-raising and in many places amusing read - and it was largely that which led to my compiling the bits and pieces for this quiz/gallery.

by Allan D Sun 15 Jul 2012, 16:18

Spoiler:

by PeterCS Sun 15 Jul 2012, 18:11

09 and 12 are indeed as you say (and are there for the reasons you have given).

In the former case a picture from 1910, I think I remember reading. Not sure of the date of picture 12, but looks again to be around 1910??

As for the others:

Spoiler:

(13 &) 14: Skully already identified Clem Hill and Victor Trumper (compiled in 13) near the top of the thread. The only remaining question in the quiz, therefore, is who is 14, and what has he got to do with all of this?

by WideWally Sun 15 Jul 2012, 19:15

Spoiler:

by PeterCS Sun 15 Jul 2012, 19:53

That's the man.

The villain of the piece. The representative of the "establishment" of the time.

And this is why I compiled Hill and Trumper in the one picture.

It might have been a cracking series if the six had been there - and there had been a bit less rain .....

by furriner Sun 15 Jul 2012, 23:08

Welcome back PeterCS, whereyabin?

by Allan D Sun 15 Jul 2012, 23:46

PeterCS wrote:That's the man.

The villain of the piece. The representative of the "establishment" of the time.

And this is why I compiled Hill and Trumper in the one picture.

It might have been a cracking series if the six had been there - and there had been a bit less rain .....

The famous fracas before the 4th Test at the MCG in February 1912 which has cropped up before on these boards. This article by Martin Williamson gives the best short account of what transpired and its ramifications for the following tour of England:

"You've Been Asking For A Punch All Night!"

I doubt whether Les Six would have made much difference, rain or no rain, since they had all played in the home series against Douglas' side and been comprehensively beaten. In the end it was Hill and Trumper's loss of form and Hill's loss of the 1911-12 series that determined their fate. The fisticuffs at the selection meeting were simply a sign of how low their morale had dropped in seeing a 1-0 advantage at the start of the series turn into 2-1 against them. In theory the series was retrievable but in reality the Australians had already surrendered the advantage. It may have been the first but was not the only time this was to happen.

by PeterCS Mon 16 Jul 2012, 15:56

furriner wrote:Welcome back PeterCS, whereyabin?

Away from this forum! Very Happy

by PeterCS Mon 16 Jul 2012, 16:05

So here for anyone wanting to try is a summary of the answers, with a few more details and a few more pics.

A lot of the "background" to the pictures and names can be found in the posts above, esp. in AD's inputs. So I won't replicate the same info here.
.................................................................................................................

General stuff, and pics 01 to 07:

Spoiler:

by PeterCS Mon 16 Jul 2012, 16:07

Pics 08 to 16:

Spoiler:

by PeterCS Mon 16 Jul 2012, 16:11

Some more images from the series, and we're home and hosed:

Spoiler:

by lardbucket Mon 16 Jul 2012, 22:08

Men in grey raincoats?

Some good pictures there, Peter.

by PeterCS Tue 17 Jul 2012, 22:37

Yep, I think so too.

Oh, if AD is still interested, here is an extra question, perhaps just for you Very Happy

How many of these England players can you identify? (The set is dated "1912".)

Picture Quiz & Gallery: ~ Some Things (Never) Change ... - Page 2 27

And so as not to spin this thread out any longer, here (under the lid) are your answers.

Don't peek before you have tried answering now! Wink

Spoiler:

by Allan D Tue 17 Jul 2012, 23:35

Spoiler:

by PeterCS Wed 18 Jul 2012, 03:01

Well, that's a fair envoi to this thread.

Myself, I was surprised how square-jawed Barnes looked in that picture, where I imagined him lean and hungry (a la Rhodes)....

Woolley and Rhodes had something in common at that point (not just a tache), though the doughty Yorkshire battler had those steely, killer eyes that make Woolley's by contrast seem kind, almost rheumy! (Soft Southerner ...)

Personally, I don't find Dean and Tiger Smith THAT similar facially. The keeper had a fleshier mouth, much bushier eyebrows, and darker, determined eyes (is that part of where his nickname came from?) .... Harry Dean looks far less striking I think, much more the hardworking Lanky factory worker about him, a bit of a potatoey face even (I said it, not thee, sithee).

I didn't get Hitch, Hearne or Foster. Douglas's early 20th century centre parting was a bit of a giveaway!

by Allan D Wed 18 Jul 2012, 05:58

Indeed, although Wally Hammond copied it between the two World Wars! You may be right about Dean and Tiger but I may have been confused by the shared cleft chin. The last survivor of that side in terms of Test cricket was, of course, the no longer moustachioed but still strikingly tall and angular Frank Woolley who, aged 47, appeared in the England side that played Australia at The Oval in 1934, the last of the pre-WWI players to do so.

Sadly for him, there was none of the heroics that had attended his appearance in the same fixture 22 years earlier. Batting at 3 Woolley was dismissed for 4 & 0 and Bob Wyatt, his captain, did not require him to bowl. The roles were very much reversed as Australia racked up 701 with both Ponsford & Bradman making double hundreds and not enforcing the follow-on despite dismissing England 380 runs behind due to the fact that the match was timeless. Nevertheless Australia still managed to defeat England by 562 runs within 4 days. A far cry from the 244-run victory England (and wollley) had experienced 22 years and a world away before after Australia had been bowled out for 65!

The youngest member of the Australian side in the 1934 match, Bill Brown, had been born during the 1912 tournament on the 3rd (and final) day of the 6th match, the 2nd Test between England and Australia at Old Trafford. Appropriately perhaps it rained and there was no play.

I had erroneously thought that Woolley was the last physical survivor of that side and of the pre-WWI England Test players generally when he passed away in Nova Scotia in the autumn of 1978 at the age of 91 but I had forgotten the Warwickshire wicketkeeper, 'Tiger' Smith who returned to the Test arena for even longer than Woolley, not as a player but as an umpire.

Indeed Smith had begun his Test umpiring duties the season before Woolley played his last Test and so could have conceivably umpired in a Test in which his former teammate played, a rare though not unknown phenomenon but they never coincided although I'm sure he had the experience on several occasions at fc level.

Smith's inaugural Test as an umpire in which he stood alongside another pre-WWI Test player, Joe Hardstaff snr, was the 2nd Test at Old Trafford at the end of July 1933 when the West Indies were the visitors and was marked by the famous occasion when the two West Indian fast bowlers, Constantine & Martindale, decided to employ bodyline tactics to the England captain, Douglas Jardine, who responded by making 127, his solitary Test century.

Smith also umpired in the Old Trafford Test when the West Indians returned in 1939 and so has the unusual distinction of both playing and umpiring in the last domestic Test series (as well as playing in the final Test series in South Africa in 1913-14 although replaced by Herbert Strudwick) before wider hostilities interrupted play for the duration.

'Tiger' passed away, aged 93, on the last day of August 1979, appropriately enough on the second day of the final Test between England and India at The Oval (the Test season had been extended into September that year due to the 2nd World Cup held earlier in the season). I remember watching his namesake and fellow Warwickshire player, M.J.K.Smith, then one of the expert commentators, deliver a handsome tribute to his former coach (although by the time M.J.K. arrived via Grace Road 'Tiger' had handed over his senior coaching role to Tom Dollery).

'Tiger' truly marks the bridge between the Edwardian Golden Age with its seemingly endless summers (although not in 1912) and rigid class distinctions to the player power of today. Here's an account of what it was like to be a professional cricketer in those dim and distant days when professionals and amateurs alike sported boaters and grew moustaches but where poverty and oblivion was but one step away:

Tarnished Gold

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