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Sporting War and Sporting Peace 1914-1919 - Colin Blythe

Today is World Mental Health Day, and in the next of Peter Bloor’s series looking at those sportsmen and women involved with sport and the First World War, Peter focuses on Kent cricketer Colin Blythe. In this piece, Peter reflects on some of Colin’s performances for Kent and England before joining the war efforts.

“Blythe’s bowling wins the Test Match”

At the end of July 1907, almost exactly a month after Kenneth Hutchings and Arthur Fielder had taken Kent to within three runs of victory over the touring South Africans their county colleague Colin Blythe faced them again in the Second Test at Headingley. This match would demonstrate Colin’s willingness to meet the demands placed upon him, demands that would force his retirement from international cricket some three years later.

Neville Knox and Len Braund were also selected but on a wholly unsuitable pitch Knox bowled just 3 overs in the match and Braund not at all, obliging Colin to bowl 38.3. He bowled unchanged throughout, taking 15 for 99 as England won the match - in which “he bowled until he could scarcely stand” - by 53 runs.

“Australians collapse before Hirst and Blythe”

It was however after the 10-wicket victory over Australia in the Edgbaston Test of 1909 that the effects of such a workload fully showed themselves. Colin bowled 47 overs and took 11 for 102 as he and George Hirst, “with a tremendous responsibility resting upon them, bowled with unflagging life and skill” to take all of the Australian wickets - but at a cost.

“Why Blythe is not at Lord’s”

Recognising that Colin had not been well since the Kent Committee advised him to consult a specialist, who concluded that “C. Blythe suffers severely in a peculiar way from the strain on the nervous system caused by playing in a Test Match” and strongly advised that he not play in the Second Test at Lord’s. He was hopeful that after a rest Colin would be fit to return but this proved to be too optimistic a prognosis and after playing in one further Test that summer and two in South Africa in 1910 Colin was forced to retire from international cricket.

This was not due to his skills fading - in his last Test Colin took 10 for 104 - nor to any loss of nerve. Writing in tribute following Colin’s death in action in 1917 the Kent Chairman Lord Harris made it plain that “His retirement from the inter-state matches was not due to a lack of courage… but to a physical defect which followed on from any severe mental strain.” This is now thought to have been a form of epilepsy that the specialist diagnosed “does not exist in the case of County matches” – as Colin was to prove in the five seasons that remained before the First World War.

The ‘sheer strength of the confidence in him’

A former county cricketer writing under the name “Ranger” was also keen to emphasise Colin’s strength of character, recalling that the better the batsman the better he bowled and including amongst those batsmen W.G. Grace and the at one time best in the world Victor Trumper. His response to being hit was not to bowl defensively by pitching shorter but to invite a repeat of the stroke while imparting more spin on the ball, a trap that brought him many wickets to soft catches. He was also nerveless enough to bowl the final over with the scores already level in the Surrey-Kent tie of 1905 at The Oval. With all the fielders close to the wicket Colin induced, or perhaps “Razor” Smith played, a swipe that skied to the wicket-keeper, prompting Colin to declare “I’ve never played in a tie before” – while the ball was still in the air.

“County cricketers join the colours”

Colin need not even have been in the army when he was killed – he was a 35-year-old with epilepsy and a trained fitter and turner who had served his apprenticeship at Woolwich Arsenal and could, without comment or criticism, have returned to work in munitions. However, as Lord Harris also wrote, “His sense of duty was so high that the moment he was free in 1914 he joined the Kent Royal Fortress Engineers” and showed such leadership qualities that he was almost immediately promoted Sergeant. Frustrated by not being posted overseas he was however willing to forgo this rank, reportedly replying to a Sergeant-Major with the words “Very well then, take these stripes off” when told that he had not been included in a draft because no sergeants were needed. His protest was heeded and Colin was finally posted across the Channel only to be killed just weeks later on November 8^th 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele, when a shell exploded above the party he was leading while working on the Forest Hall to Pommern Castle Light Railway.

When writing of Colin in 1917 Lord Harris was concerned to write less of his cricketing successes and more of “his sterling character” that “never failed in a crisis” – something he had certainly shown in the sporting sense at Headingley, Edgbaston and The Oval, and in the wartime crisis that was Passchendaele.

References

The quotes and other information in this article are taken from The Times, The Tonbridge Free Press, The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, The Sportsman and local newspapers 1907-1920, and the 12^th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry War Diary, The National Archives reference WO95/2353/1

Images – Colin Blythe Wills 1908, George Hirst F&J Smith 1912, and the Pioneer Battalion at Passchendaele Imperial War Museum, reference © IWM Q 5713