1938
County Championship 12th (W7, L10, D7, A1)
Captain George Heane
The season of 1938 was again a disappointing one. 30 matches were played (two outside the Championship), 7 were won, 11 lost and the remainder drawn – one of those being abandoned without a ball bowled.
In the Championship Table the county fell from tenth to twelfth place, largely due to injuries to some of the leading players. Larwood was able to play as a batter more often than a bowler and his long time partner Voce also missed part of the season.
Three fine wins in the last three matches redeemed the side from absolute failure, and the one against Hampshire in particular is worth recording.
After Hampshire had a first innings lead of 107, Nottinghamshire replied with 349, to which George Heane contributed 106. Hampshire required 243 to win. They had made 75 for 8, and with only two balls remaining to be bowled, they had 2 wickets in hand and a draw seemed certain, with the first innings points going to Hampshire, but Ron Giles took two wickets with the last two balls of the match and Nottinghamshire just snatched a sensational victory of 167 runs.
Giles’s remarkable figures – by some distance a career best – were 5-4-1-3! His slow left-arm orthodox bowling was not over-used, in a twenty year county career, he took just 23 wickets and this was the only occasion in which he took more than two in an innings.
The season started well enough – a journey to Northampton and a comfortable eight wicket win but there were to be seven consecutive games without a victory thereafter.
Sussex came to Trent Bridge and, thanks to centuries from Jim Parks and George Cox, won by an innings and 71 runs. A draw away to Cambridge University was followed by another innings defeat, to Middlesex at Lord’s. Bill Edrich scored 245 and, despite a century from Joe Hardstaff, Notts followed on, falling well short.
Hampshire drew at Trent Bridge in a match badly affected by the wet weather that prevailed throughout the summer (of which more later). Rain also shortened the Whitsun game at home to Surrey but Notts might still have engineered a win had not Joe Hardstaff injured his hand and been unable to bat in the second innings (Notts lost by 11 runs).
Notts drew with Worcestershire before losing, again quite heavily, to Somerset at Taunton. Although the home county mustered just 298 in their first innings, that was sufficient to secure at 10-wicket win.
They found some mid-season form and secured three wins on the trot – starting with revenge for the earlier drubbing by Sussex. At Hove, Notts recovered from a first innings deficit of 140 to score 326-6 for a six wicket victory.
Back at Trent Bridge, Kent were beaten by seven wickets and Northants by an innings and 5 runs.
This latter match was Harold Larwood’s last appearance for Notts, fittingly in some ways as he had made his First-Class debut against the same opponents in 1924. ‘Lol’ did return to play at his home ground once more, in a war-time fixture in 1941, and he came to Trent Bridge in 1977, on the occasion of the Ashes Test in the year of the Ashes Centenary.
That brief flurry of wins was over and the next sixteen games were either drawn or lost. One of the drawn fixtures was that away to Gloucestershire at Cheltenham when the rain really took hold and the game was abandoned.
In the middle of that run of poor results was a drubbing at the hands of Larwood’s old foes, the Australians. In a summer when the Aussies won almost everything, they dismissed Notts for 147 and 137; a second innings of 453-4, built around a stand of 216 between Don Bradman (144) and Lindsay Hassett (134) sealed victory by 412 runs. Bradman, incidentally, passed 2,000 runs for that season during his century.
A month earlier, the Australians had been involved in an even higher scoring spectacle at Trent Bridge. The First Test of what was to prove a triumphant series for the visitors featured seven individual centuries, still the most for any Test at Trent Bridge and one innings that ranks among the best of all time.
Stan McCabe’s 232 in Australia’s made even the great ‘Don’ envious. Bradman reportedly ordered his team-mates onto balcony, telling them “you may not see its like again”. Characterised by daring, innovative stroke play and quick scoring - McCabe’s 232 came out of just 300 added while he was at the crease - McCabe’s innings didn’t lead to victory, but did secure immortality. “Stan,” Bradman told him on his return to pavilion, “I would give a lot to be able to play an innings like that.”
In the Championship, as referred to previously, the season ended with three good wins that took Nottinghamshire to twelfth place – hardly a matter for celebration but a great improvement on their mid-summer form.
The batters could be excused – six players scored more than 1,000 runs in First-Class cricket, topped by Joe Hardstaff with an average of 58.86 – but the bowling suffered from the loss of Larwood, who bowled just 120 overs in all and took just six wickets, and injuries to Voce and Butler.
Centenary Year
There was still cause for celebration in 1938 – though the wet weather did its best to intervene – with the marking of the Trent Bridge Centenary.
In 1938, William Clarke put a rope around the field at the back of his pub, the Trent Bridge Inn and charged the public to come to watch Nottingham (and other clubs) play cricket. Though this did not meet with approval – the public had got used to watching matches for free on The Forest – it was the beginning of the historic ground, now famous throughout the cricketing world.
To commemorate this historic event a souvenir book was prepared under the editorship of writer and cricket lover, E V Lucas. Copies are in the Wynne Thomas Library at Trent Bridge and in cricket libraries around the world, though initially the book was only distributed to members of the Club. The cost of the preparation and printing was wholly borne by the President, Sir Julien Cahn.
Sir Julien also supplied a loudspeaker set on the ground which was to be inaugurated on the occasion of the Hampshire match on 28 May with an address by the Chair of the Committee, Douglas McCraith. Unfortunately rain completely ruined the Committee’s plans and no play took place. The address was given in the Pavilion to a few enthusiasts.
However, the BBC arranged a broadcast dealing with the centenary from Trent Bridge on 30 May with Douglas McCraith, Bert Oldfield, Walter Marshall, Club Secretary H A Brown, captain George and players Larwood, Voce and Hardstaff.
Harold Larwood
Larwood had a contract with Notts for the 1938 season and beyond but it was apparent that his injuries – dating from the damage done on the hard Australian pitches of 1932-33 – were such that he was unlikely to bowl again in competitive cricket. It was agreed between Harold and the Club Committee that his contract would be annulled ‘by mutual agreement’.
As Club Secretary HA Brown put it in his report to members: “His notable performances on behalf of England and Nottinghamshire are too numerous to set out here. It is to be regretted that his career in first-class cricket of such a brilliant and stout-hearted bowler should have terminated prematurely owing to physical causes.”
‘Lol’ did return to play at his home ground once more, in a war-time fixture in 1941, and he came to Trent Bridge in 1977, on the occasion of the Ashes Test in the year of the Ashes Centenary. In September 1980 he and his long-term friend and bowling partner Bill Voce were among the many paying tribute to another great fast bowling servant of the county as (Sir) Richard Hadlee played his last game.
Hadlee recalled that day many years later, saying: “The last game of the campaign was a Sunday League match against Lancashire. You were only allowed a 15-metre run-up and I took six for 12.
It felt like a pleasing way to end my Notts career and I remember standing on the balcony with Harold Larwood and Clive Rice and saying farewell.”
Harold's career is dealt with in numerous books that can be seen (and borrowed by NCCC members) in the Wynne-Thomas Library but his overall figures are worth repeating.
In fourteen seasons of First-Class cricket he took 1427 wickets at 17.51 with ten wickets or more in a match twenty times; he made three First-Class hundreds, but never passed 102 (which he got twice).
Another loyal servant of Notts also played their last game for the county in 1938. Arthur Staples also played between 1924 and 1938, finishing with 635 wickets at 29.82 and almost 13,000 career runs with twelve centuries - top score 153no made against Cambridge Universirty in 1936.
Stats and scorecards for 1938 can be seen here
March 2025