1937
County Championship 10th (W6, D16, L4)
Captain George Heane
“The season of 1937 was one of the most disappointing that the Club has experienced for many years” …thus began the Committee Report on that summer’s cricket and at a greater distance, it is hard to disagree with their judgement.
Thirty matches were played, six were won, four were lost and the remainder were drawn. In mitigation, it should be noted that only the eventual champions, Yorkshire, lost fewer games than Notts…but also that the bottom two clubs, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, were the only ones with fewer victories.
In the Championship Table the County fell from fifth to tenth place. This was largely due to injuries to the team’s three leading bowlers, Larwood, Voce and Butler.
Voce suffered an injury in June that kept him out of the field for the rest of the season. The impact of his absence is clear in the list of results. In their first nineteen matches, up to the last week in July, Notts were unbeaten; in the final eleven matches, they won only won and suffered the four defeats.
They seem to have been adept at avoiding defeat – only Lancashire, who played four more games, had more draws – but less successful at forcing victories.
Batting was the team’s undoubted strength: Hardstaff scored 1,920 runs at 66.20 and established himself as one of the leading batsmen of the Country; Keeton, scored more than 2,000 runs with an average of 45.54; Harris again showed his reliability by scoring 1,877 runs with an average of 43.65; and George V Gunn made 1,763 runs with an average of 44.07.
“It is doubtful”, said the Committee, “if any other County possesses four better batsmen than those named.”
After many years of loyal and valuable services to the Club, Willis Walker and Ben Lilley played their last matches. The former had been one of the batting mainstays of the side, and the latter had kept wicket with efficiency. Lilley captained the side when Arthur Carr was absent through illness.
The fractured nature of the season is exemplified by seven players making their First-Class debuts. Of those seven, only Ron Giles, who went on to play more than 200 times for the County, and Edwin Marshall, had cricketing careers of note.
Eddie Marshall, who stepped up from skippering the Second XI, was to serve the Club in many capacities, being elected to the Notts CCC Committee in 1942 and serving as Club President in 1964/5. He was also chair of the Supporters Club for about 15 years.
The other debutants were James Bradley, Joe Buxton, George Walker, Denis Watkin and Walter Gerald Yates. These latter two were not known by their given names in their brief county careers; Watkin appeared as ‘Archie’ and Yates was always called ‘Steve’ (for reasons that have been lost in history).
On the field, the season began well enough with a draw at home to Sussex and victory over Surrey, the latter due in no small part to Harold Butler’s second innings figures of 8-15 – his best First-Class return – that included the hat-trick of Fred Berry, Alf Gover and John Daley to finish the match.
There followed drawn fixtures against Cambridge University, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. The Worcester game was Ben Lilley’s last for Nottinghamshire, Arthur Wheat or Cecil Maxwell taking over the wicket-keeper role.
Somerset were well beaten at Taunton, by nine wickets, with drawn matches against Northants and Glamorgan.
Two good victories followed. Against Leicestershire at Worksop, Harold Butler took his second hat-trick of the season, claiming the wickets of Ewart Astill, George Dawkes and Haydon Smith in the visitors’ first innings, to become the only Notts bowler to take two hat-tricks against different opposition in the same season. (Alfred Shaw took two hat-tricks in the same game v Gloucester in 1884).
Middlesex were beaten at Lord’s by three wickets, with Bill Voce taking ten wickets in the match.
The New Zealand tourists came to Trent Bridge and played out a drawn game; centuries from Tom Lowry and ‘Curly’ Page for the visitors were matched by Joe Hardstaff and George V Gunn. The two sons of great Notts batters of the recent past shared a fourth wicket stand of 199.
In the drawn game against Yorkshire at Headingley, Willis Walker made 21 in each innings – in the course of which he passed 18,000 First-Class runs, a fitting way to mark his final season.
Joe Hardstaff was again in the runs for the drawn game with Somerset, making 214no, at that point his career-best score.
Draws were also made against Glamorgan and Lancashire before Notts went to Dudley to complete their penultimate win of the season, sneaking home by just 4 runs against Worcestershire.
Only a five wicket win over Kent at Canterbury relieved the dismal final third of the season with nine further draws and the four defeats.
Derbyshire walloped Notts by an innings and 23 runs at Chesterfield, the visiting side having to follow on despite Derby’s relatively modest total of 332.
They lost by ten wickets to Lancashire at Trent Bridge, by 171 runs to Essex at Southend and by an innings and 185 runs to Gloucestershire at Bristol, Charlie Barnett and Grahame Page sharing a double century opening stand for the home side.
The consolation victory was secured by a solid batting performance, led by Joe Hardstaff who made 97 and 126, passing 1,000 runs for the season en route.
Scorecards and stats can be seen here
March 2025