This year sees the 175th anninversary of the foundation of Dublin University Cricket Club (DUCC).

Though the Club has experienced some unsuccessful times of late, no one can deny its long and proud history, or the fact that it has produced some of Ireland's greatest players.

A number of these flourished towards the end of the 19th Century, when the Club also had some of  greatest moments, taking on MCC, County, Oxford and Cambridge sides as well  as the Australian and South African tourists and achieving a fair degree of success.

Yet its players of the time, - whose names, for example David Trotter, Clem Johnson, Frank Browning, the Gwynn brothrers, and Meldon cousins rank high in any litany of Ireland's greatest - would have been the first to admit that, for all their individual brilliance and collective success, they owed much to their coach, the long serving English East Midlander, Jesse Richards.

JESSE RICHARDS was born in Carlton, a Nottinghamshire village now engulfed by the city's urban sprawl, on 3 August 1835, the second son of John and Elizabeth Richards.

He followed his father and elder brother Lewis into the factories, working as stocking frame knitter, as they did.

By 1861, he  and his wife of three years, Harriet lived, together with their one year old daughter Elizabeth in the village of Barford, also now to be found in  Nottingham's suburbia. The factory work was hard and drudge-like but, for Jesse, there was the blessed release of cricket.

He  was an indifferent bat and poor field, but a very good  right arm, round arm, medium pacer who achieved some success when his local XXII - or XVIII - played the travelling All England XI.

This side - and its rivals the United All England and United South of England Elevens - travelled the length and breadth of Britain and also visited  Dublin and Belfast.

Locals who did well against them sometimes found themselves recommended elsewhere. Thus it must have been that, in  the early 1860s, Jesse found himself professional to Phoenix CC.

Here his duties mostly comprised bowling to members in the nets and ground preparation. However he also  umpired matches and thus occured an incident, which might have been  disasterous for him,  but instead marked the turning point in his career.

He was officiating in a game between Phoenix and the visiting I Zingari side, probably in 1866, when he gave the Phoenix batsman, William Ashton out LBW.

Ashton, generally then reckoned the best bat in Ireland, was far from pleased. He threw a tantrum, worthy of any modern Test Match prima donna seeking a TV referal when given out by a certain Australian umpire.

He accused Jesse of cheating, giving the decision in favour of his fellow Englishman, the IZ bowler. Ashton then stormed off in, to borrow from the immortal Myles na gCopaleen, "that lofty vehicle a high dudgeon."

The following day Jesse  resigned though whether he jumped or was pushed is lost in the mists of time. Either way it was back to Harriet, their growing family and the stocking frame. The green fields of  Ireland must have seemed an age away.

Fate, however, intervened in the shape of a member of the famous Lillywhite family, either John or his nephew James, later to captain England's first ever Tes side, both of whom were not infrequent visitors to  Ireland, and who would probably also have met Jesse when their travelling XIs came to Nottinghamshire.

Whichever one it was recommended Jesse to DUCC as a second professional to John Ambler, a Yorkshire man, some years younger than Jesse, who arrived in College Park in 1868, becoming first professional in 1870, when the peripatetic Ambler, moved on.

Jesse, though he had a variety of assistants, remained  in charge until 1894, when he nominally handed over to Alfred Green, though Jesse remained on in a part time capacity until 1896. There can be no doubt who was really in control.

He still spent the winters in Barford, where he and Hariet had three sons and three daughters. His new circumstances allowed him to abandon the factory. By 1881 he had acquired a grocer's business and his eldest child, Elizabeth, had become a schoolteacher.

Before examining his coaching skills we should say some thing of his own  cricket.

He played three  matches for the DUCC Past and Present XXII against the visiting English profesional XIs.  A late replacement in 1870 against he United South, he tok 5/18 on the first morning  of the match to bowl the visitors out before lunch for 62. However they had the leading bowler of the day in  Edgar Willsher and won with some ease, Edgar having match figures of 23/56.

The  following year, Jesse, and JP Mahaffy bowled the University to a memorable innings victory over the same opponents. Jesse had taken two wickets in the first innings as the visitors were forced to follow on. Then he took 6/38 and Mahaffy 4/25 to achieve victory.

Mahaffy, a brilliant but controversial academic who regarded the  crowned heads of Europe as personal friends - Queen Victoria did not reciprocate - was also a very good slow lob bowler, particularly with a wet ball.

The following year they caused great excitement by  bowling the All Englanders out for 98, each taking four wickets. However the home batting proved inadequate and the visitors needed only 42 to win. They got them but they also got a fright. Jesse and Mahaffy reduced them to 0/4, but then erstwhile NICC professional Martin McIntyre slogged wildly to make 25. By the time Jesse bowled him to make the score 37/6, it was too late.

Jesse, the coach,had a rare eye for batting talent, seeing ability in players which others had missed, bringing it out and then developing it.

His skill may best be seen by considering but two examples. They are, perhaps, his best known susccesses, but many others also benefited.

Frank Browning came to College Park from Marlborough College in 1888. He had been in the school XI but had not been highly regarded as either a  batsman or wicket keeper. Jesse was to make him one of  Ireland's best in both departments.

He became one of Ireland's most reliable batsmen, proficient off the back foot, and a scorer of runs agains the best county and touring attacks. After only a year of Jesse's coaching, he reputedly scored 2,000 run in the 1889 season. He always admitted a huge debt to his mentor.

Lucius Gwynn, still  remembered as one of the most gifted and greatst of all  our batsmen, came to College Park from St Columba's  College ,with a reputation as a  good medium pacer, but his batting was of little account. His brother Arthur was seen as much the better bat.

Jesse spotted the hidden talent and, three years after going in at 10 in his first DUCC season, Lucius was at 3 for the Gentlemen v Players at the Oval in 1895, making 80.

The legend that he was chosen for England v Australia the following year but had to decline, is probably just that, but it shows the esteem in which he was held.

Jesse's mantra was back foot play. This was the  foundation of all good batsmanhip.  How he would have approved of a coaching strip in an English tabloid in the 1970s "Attacking Cricket with Geoffrey Boycott. No1: The backward defensive stroke." The success of " Sir"Geoffrey" and of Jesse's many charges speaks volumes for  their methods.

Discovering batting talent was far from Jesse's only attribute. During his time he produced two excllent wicket keepers in Browning and the Australian Edward Fitzgerald, besides a wealth of bowling talent.

For example pacemen such as Horace Hamilton, who surprised the 1880 Australians  with his speed and accuracy, and Clem Johnson, who forced to leave Ireland to recover his health, played one Test for South Africa.

As spinners there were Archie Penny, a very tall man, whose huge off breaks startled American cricketers on the tour of 1892 and  Philip Meldon , whose high tossed leg  spin once deceived WG, bowling the Doctor round his legs, though he had scored 117.

Jesse was a hard taskmaster and, though he might address his students as "Sir"and was nominally their employee, there was no doubt hat they deeply respected him.

Robin Gwynn, yet another brother, described him as "The great professional coach" in his introduction to Pat Hone's " Cricket in Ireland", also calling him, "The sarcastic tyrant of College Park."

Jesse, average in height and strong in build, stands in some twenty years of team photographs, impressively dressed, head crowned by a prominent hat, apart from one photograph where he sports a faded cricket cap. An ever growing , and ever greying beard, surrounds his face, but showing the real man behind the "tyranny", kindly eyes twinkle.

On his retirement, the Dublin clubs organised a collection for him. Phoenix with Ashton now living in Cheshire and many  DUCC"old boys" as members contributed gladly.

He inherited a pub in Barford, but, perhaps hankering for the serenity of College Park, he died in the early part of the 1899 cricket season.

Harriet survived him by some six years. He remains a largely unsung hero,  but a remarkable man, who, in this year of celebration for  the DUCC should not be allowed to go unremembered.



Copyright: Cover Point