Heriots Cricket Club - Groundsman As A 'professional'

Groundsman As A 'professional'

The Club has always had at least two regular elevens, and often three or four, as well as an important and continuing link with Heriot’s School and its teams through junior sides. That said, some of its earliest members were not Herioters, including its first Scottish cap, prolific batsman John Mushet (who played once, against Australia in 1912). Other members were teachers at the School. Mushet aside, probably the Club’s finest early player was John Waddell, who inaugurated a tradition of outstanding spin bowling (left-arm, in Waddell’s case) and took nearly 300 wickets in six seasons before his early death in 1899. The Club groundsman was also usually a competent player, who would play for the team as the “professional”. This tradition continued until the 1970s, with leading names including David “Pa” Nicoll, Arthur Creber and George Waites. By 1914, when play was stopped by the outbreak of war across Europe, the fixture list included most of Scotland’s leading clubs outside the already existent Western Union.