A UNIQUE NEMENTO.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 10, 12 July 1909, Page 8

A UNIQUE NEMENTO.

PRESENTATION TO MR. E. F. UPHAIVL When the champion 'bailor retires definitely from following the arduous game, when the representative cricketer decides, after many years' service, to take part in the sport no more, except as a committeeman or onlooker, then a grateful and admiring public, mindful of past deeds of athletic worth, sometimes set about a presentation. JMostly the gifts, while adequate, are not always appropriate. But against tho memento prepared and obtained by tho Midland Cricket Club for presentation to Mr. E. F. Upham, in consideration of his long and successful services to the club and New Zealand cricket generally, no charge of inappropriateness may lie. The presentation is from the club, the idea is that of Mr. Isaac Hyams, Telegraph Department, G.P.0., who also has been a prominent worker in Now Zealand cricket and football for many years. It is an album, handsomely bound in the club colours, maroon and white, with Mr. Uphani's monogram in gold on the first outside cover — a unique thing. The album contains the records of the Midland Club since its inception, on 21st September, 1883, up to the end of the 1908 season, when the club disbanded owing to the institution of district cricket. In those years the club won 104 matches, lost 43, and there were 10 unfinished. Of 26 championships the club won 9, and tied 4 times. An inscription inside reads to the effect that this token was presented by club-mates to Mi. Upham, in recognition of his many sterling performances in the Wellington Cricket Association and for New Zealand, and records demonstrate that completely. For over twenty 'years Mr. Uphani's bowling and slip fielding were features of club and interprovinctal cricket, and during that time he has captured the prodigious number of 1033 wickets, at an average of 11.99, as the direct result of wheeling up 34,216 balls ! His average runs per innings for 2C4 efforts works out < ab 13.64. The records, the work of Mr. Hyams, arc very comprehensive, covering, us they do, 26 years of senior cricket. For the rest of the contents of the album, which is" a work of art as regards its general get-up and the engrossing and letterpress — all the work of Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs — there are many autographs of past and present j members of the Midland Club. i The date of the presentation has not yet been decided upon.