NINE-PINS!

The match ebbed and flowed over three days in the Civil Service ground in the Phoenix Park. Started on Friday and ended on Monday evening. No play on Sunday. This was the 1906 Leinster Junior League Final “B” Division.  

Over two innings Malahide aggregated 270. Clontarf posted the huge score of 212 in their first innings with Bertie Aston playing “capital cricket for his 84, in which were many fine strokes”.  

Tarf only needed 76 to see it home in the fourth innings but fell short on the third evening by 12 runs. “Down they went like nine-pins before the Malahide bowling” reported the Irish Independent under the headline ‘A Cricket Surprise’. Archie Adams doing the damage in the 2nd innings with seven wickets for not a lot. Scorecards and reports appeared in all the main newspapers.

Charlie O’Shea’s winning medal appears below.  Issued by the Leinster Cricket Union the face is beautifully decorated with crossed bats, stumps and ball.  The back of the small neat silver medal is personally inscribed to O’Shea.  The O’Sheas and Adams continue to have strong connections to Malahide CC to this day.

This was the first senior trophy won by the Village. However, bizarrely this appears to be the last competitive game to be played by Malahide until normal service resumed in 1925.  

Ground issues, social upheaval, rebellion and wars intervened. Social cricket continued to be played on a cinders track close to the Village centre until the outbreak of World War 1. On the other hand cricket continued uninterrupted for the most part in Clontarf.

An interesting footnote is that Bertie Aston and Charlie Adams (Archie’s brother) made their debut for Ireland on the same day in 1908 in the Home Nations Rugby Championship v England at Richmond, London.

Malahide CC XI c1898 including “Irish twins” Charlie and Henry O’Shea (2nd + 5th left back row), Charlie Adams (3rd left back row) and Archie Adams (1st left middle row).

Bertie Aston as in H. (Herbert) R. Aston