Reggie Spooner

Reggie Spooner

"Reggie" as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, July 1906
Cricket information
Batting style	Right-hand bat
Bowling style	–
International information
National side	English
Career statistics
Competition Tests First-class Matches 10 237 Runs scored 481 13,681 Batting average 32.06 36.28 100s/50s 1/4 31/59 Top score 119 247 Balls bowled – 710 Wickets – 6 Bowling average – 97.00 5 wickets in innings – – 10 wickets in match – – Best bowling – 1/5 Catches/stumpings 4/- 142/-
Source: [1]

Reginald Herbert Spooner (21 October 1880, Billinge, St Helens, Lancashire – 2 October 1961, Lincoln, Lincolnshire) was a cricketer who played for Lancashire and England. He also played Rugby Union for England.

Spooner was one of the leading amateur batsmen of the so-called "Golden Age" of English cricket before the First World War. Coming to prominence as a schoolboy cricketer for Marlborough College, Spooner played first for Lancashire in 1899, then disappeared on military service, some of it in the Second Boer War in South Africa, for three years. Reappearing in 1903, he scored 247 against Nottinghamshire, at that time the highest score made against that county, and shared with Archie MacLaren a first-wicket partnership of 368 against Gloucestershire at Aigburth, Liverpool, which remains the Lancashire record. For the next three years, Spooner, along with MacLaren and Johnny Tyldesley, was the backbone of an extremely formidable batting side that played forty-five County Championship matches without defeat between August 1903 and July 1905.

Spooner's off-drive was particularly strong. In addition, great watchfulness made Spooner, in his prime, the best player of fast bowling on fiery pitches – which were the rule at Old Trafford in fine weather during the 1900s. Among many notable innings by Spooner on fiery wickets were against Essex in 1904 and for the Gentlemen at Lord's against Arthur Fielder in 1906.