Page:Jubilee Book of Cricket (Second edition, 1897).djvu/353

Rh right of letting football-grounds at rents which the Football Clubs have loyally consented to pay. The club at once ran a railing across the part of the Park thus secured for games, at a cost of £101, 8s. 3d.; but the further results cannot appear till the accounts for 1883 are published.

The items just taken from the payments up to 1882 show that the club, besides paying a rent to the university of £130 a-year, has also spent capital to the amount of £1100, 16s. 8d. It is a matter of congratulation that, though such liabilities have been incurred and discharged, the club has not appealed for private subscriptions, and is out of debt.

The explanation of this financial success is to be found in the improved revenue of the club. In the first place, the club came to the Park with a balance of £319, 8s. gd. Secondly, the M.C.C., recognising the value of the university match at Lord's, has agreed to make an annual grant to both university clubs, according to their necessities. £450 have been received by the O.U.C.C. from this source. Thirdly, the subscriptions to the club have very largely increased. In 1880, the last year of the Marsh, they had fallen to £162. In 1881, the first year of the Park, they rose to £328, 10s. In 1882 they again rose to £417, 12s. 6d. This is the most satisfactory point in the accounts, because it means not mere financial success, but the renewed popularity of the University Cricket Club. In such circumstances, the committee can with confidence appeal for support in the measures which are from time to time necessary in order to ensure the advantages of the club to its members.

Another document of the time may amuse the reader. The officers of the Cricket and Football Clubs dined with me at Corpus Christi College, and after dinner we signed the following agreement between the Cricket Club and the Football Clubs as its lessees:—

The Football Clubs agree to pay £6 per ground per season—the maximum rent fixed by the curators of the Park.

The committee of the Cricket Club agrees to secure the Football Clubs as many and as good grounds, in the opinion of the football officials (unless the university takes their ground for building), as they have had in the season 1881-82; and when the Cricket Club wishes to level a ground, it agrees to secure the Football Club which had that ground in the previous year, another ground as good within the enclosure let to the Cricket Club.