- There have been two comments on this at TripAdvisor as of 6 October. The first suggested that if you wanted to set up an Irish pub and buy enough Guinness you could get whatever confected memorabilia you like. But this item would be an arcane request. The other drew attention to the fact that the Genova Cricket and Football Club, established in 1893 by Brits for Brits, might have been a source. That club set up the first football team in Italy, which eventually became by amalgamation Sampdoria. Which would still leave a big question of how the Irish got the object in Piacenza. There is of course, or was, a hotbed of Irishness half way between Genova and Piacenza, in Bobbio, separate blog entry to come...
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We stopped for a necessary moment, a coffee and a sandwich opposite a modern art museum (as you do)
and to our surprise, this was high on the wall
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| Surrey County Cricket Club, England Australia, Sept 6th to 8th 1880, Kennington Oval Kennington Oval now known simply as The Oval. |
There was no authority on the provenance of this item present at 11am 1 October 2018.
Some research yields that this event was in fact the first test cricket match in England. There had been several test cricket matches in Australia. The test match in Sydney in in 1879 had turned riotous and Lord Harris who led that England team really wanted nothing to do with the Australians when they turned up next year in England. Then and onwards to the 1960s teams travelled by sea between England and Australia, not an easy undertaking.
In 1880, an Australian side ... toured England. The tourists had difficulty finding good opponents; most county sides turned them down, although Yorkshire played two unofficial matches against them.[63][64]There was a lot of bad will, exacerbated by the Australians' arrival in England at short notice, to some extent unexpectedly. [64] This was heightened by an English perception that the Australians came frequently to maximise their profits; at the time, professionalism was frowned upon. [65] In his autobiography Lord Harris wrote, "They asked no-one's goodwill in the matter, and it was felt this was a discourteous way of bursting in on our arrangements; and the result was they played scarcely any counties and were not generally recognised ... We felt we had to make a protest against too frequent visits".[54] Harris initially shunned the team and tried to avoid correspondence and meetings with them.[66]
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| W G Grace was perhaps the greatest cricketer of the 1800s |
An attempt to arrange a game against an English XI for the Cricketers' Fund was turned down,[67] and public advertisements in the newspapers were shunned.[64] W.G. Grace was sympathetic to the Australians and felt that they were not to blame for the riot. He attempted to arrange a game for them at Lord's, but was rebuffed by the Marylebone Cricket Club,[64] who gave the excuse that the ground was not available.[54]Despite it being Murdoch's wicket that started the riot, the English public were more sympathetic towards him than Gregory, and although the Australians played against weak opposition,[54] including many XVIIIs,[65][68][69][70] they attracted large crowds, leading the counties to regret their decision to snub them.[54] Eventually the secretary of Surrey, C. W. Alcock asked Lord Harris to put together a representative side to play the Australians,[71] while Grace acted as a mediator. Luckily for the Australians, Lord Harris had a personal rapport with their captain Murdoch and leading player Spofforth, especially as they shared his antipathy towards throwing. [72] An agreement was reached, and although Lord Harris was generous in agreeing to lead the side, [67] three cricketers who played in the infamous Sydney game—Hornby, Emmett and Ulyett—refused to play. Harris assembled a strong team, which included the three Grace brothers and Australia, who had not faced strong opposition and were without star bowler Fred Spofforth, went down by five wickets in front of 45,000 spectators.[73][74][75] This game, later recognised as the fourth Test in history and the first to be played in England, is more important than its result, as the custom of cricket tours between England and Australia was cemented. Overall, the tour was a financial success and an effective exercise in mending relations; the team were received by the Lord Mayor of London at the end of the tour and were given gifts. [74] Profits were healthy and public awareness of the bilateral cricketing relationship increased.[72]
For cricket tragics, details here.
I find on the web no mention of mementos such as that in the Piacenza Irish Pub. Any background? Please offer comment below.
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