Wally Hardinge

Harold Thomas William "Wally" Hardinge, born 25 February 1886, and died at Cambridge on 8 May 1965, was a cricketer who played for Kent and England. He was also a football international for England.

Cricket career

In a first-class cricket career lasting more than 30 years from the age of 16, Hardinge, a right-handed opening batsman, scored 33,519 runs and 75 centuries. His run total puts him 45th on the all-time list of runmakers, and he passed 1,000 runs for a season 18 times. His one appearance in Test cricket came against Warwick Armstrong's 1921 Australians in a match where Jack Hobbs had to withdraw on the opening day because of appendicitis. Hardinge scored 25 and 5 and was not picked again.

Hardinge continued to score heavily in county cricket, his best season being 1928 when, at 42 years of age, he scored 2,446 runs at an average just under 60 runs per innings. He scored centuries in four consecutive innings in 1913 and four times scored centuries in both innings of a match. in 1921, he became only the third cricketer, after C. B. Fry and Warwick Armstrong, to score a double-century and a century in the same match. He bowled slow left arm spinners well enough to take 371 career wickets. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1915.

Football career

As a footballer, Hardinge played as an inside forward. He started out at various amateur clubs in Kent before signing for Newcastle United in May 1905. After two and a half years there, mainly as a reserve (he played only nine league matches), he moved to Sheffield United for £350. There he flourished, becoming one of the trickiest inside forwards in the game, scoring nearly 50 goals in just under 150 league matches. While at Bramall Lane he won one England cap, against Scotland in 1910.

In the summer of 1913 Hardinge returned to the south, signing for Woolwich Arsenal (who had just moved into their new Highbury ground, and would drop the "Woolwich" from their name a year later), and played there until the outbreak of World War I. Hardinge served as a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, and upon being demobbed after the end of the war, played another season at Arsenal before dropping down to the reserves. He retired in 1921, having played 55 times and scored 14 goals for the Gunners first team.

After retirement

After retiring from cricket, Hardinge worked for John Wisden & Co. He also had a spell as a coach of Tottenham Hotspur's reserve team in the 1930s and for a short period became caretaker manager of the First Team in 1935 after the rapid departure of Percy Smith.

References

• England football profile
• Cricinfo profile

External links

• Photo