A WET MAY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 193, 30 July 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WET MAY

£12,000 LOST TO COUNTY CRICKET CLUBS FACE GRAVE POSITION. LANCASHIRE’S 14 SPECTATORS. The wettest May for nearly 50 years has created a grave position in English county cricket. A total of 49 playing days has been lost to clubs engaged in the county championship, and taking university and other matches into account the the aggregate is sixty-three. At a moderate estimate a sum of £12,000 has been lost to the game—and that following a season in which the majority of counties showed a big deficit.

Messages from “Daily Mail correspondents are given below: — Derbyshire.—have lost eight days out of the last twelve. Receipts £2OOO down. Position so bad the committee are contemplating a special appeal for help. Glamorgan.—Began the season with a debt of £2500, and have now suffered further loss. Play has been possible on only 5J out of a possible 11 days. Estimated loss £7OO-£BOO. Kent. —Only one home game in May which was carried through. Club shows satisfactory profit. Lancashire. —Six completely blank days out of five home matches. Only 14 people paid for admission on one playing day, and the average attendance on 11 days has been under 1700.

Leicestershire.—Only one blank day, but the weather generally has been cold or rainy, and the estimated loss is now over £5OO. There was a debit balance at the beginning of the season of £3OOO, and tho position is serious.

Lucky Notts. Nottinghamshire have been fortunate in having only two home matches. Have lost one whole day and part of two other days during May. Receipts between £7OO and £BOO down. Northamptonshire.—Lost one day’s cricket in a home match—at Peterborough on Saturday. Estimated loss £2OO to £250. Somerset.—Started the season £4OO in debt after special appeal had realised £l4OO. Recepits from Whitsuntide match £2OO down. Bath Festival receipts were £l5 and expenses £l5O. Yorkshire match receipts £75. County £5OO down this season. Sussex. —Rain has stopped play on two days at the Hove ground this seasqn —and Sussex have played only two matches there. The loss incurred owing to the bad weather on these two days is estimated at about £2OO. Mr W. L. Knowles, the secretary of the club, said: “When the weather i g bad it costs us about £loq a day. We have played three matches this season at home and fortunately, during our match against Leicester, at Hastings, the weather was very good indeed.”

Warwickshire.—loss not serious, as there have been only two home matches this season. In one of these Coton—not a ball was bowled, Yorkshire.—Eleven blank days out of the first 22, and from Whitsuntide to the end of the month barely 16 hours ’ actual cricket. Receipts from the Lancashire match at Bradford over £lOOO down compared with the game at Sheffield last season. The county has 6000 members and accumulated funds of over £20,000. Gloucestershire—Thirty-eight playing hours lost of possible 54 —a month of real disaster. Financial loss from £l2OO to £l5OO. Seven Blanks. Middlesex.—Out of 18 possible playing days rain prevented play on seven occasions. In addition the weather cut two hours out of the Warwick--1 shire match on the first day, and 4hr 40min out of the second day of the 1 Notts match. In the corresponding month of last year only 101 hours ’ were lost through rain. Surrey.—Play not possible on four days during May. It can be estimated that the money lost when the gates i have not been opened, amounts to , £450. On three other days the durai tion of play was so brief that there r were practically no spectators.