From the Guardian archiveSport19 May 1960 Balls are tossed, full pitch, to the batswoman, who has to guard a wicket consisting of a wooden “target,” mounted about shoulder level
‘There’s a breathless hush,” all right to-night, with “ten to make and the match to win…” There is also a “blinding light” of evening and a breeze riffling through the budding tree-tops. The setting is very old English and nostalgic. But for once it is not somnolent. They are not stupefying us with cricket after all. We shall not be awakened with the last man in.
The white figures, elegant and trim as they perform the traditional rhythms of the game, are women and things are actually happening.
What a magic excitement of activity and charm the stoolball season, which, like cricket, is just opening, brings to the two counties in the South of England (and a few odd places in the North) where it is played! What a stimulus the ladies provide after the soporific conventions and stultifying inactivities of cricket! Why doesn’t this lively, glamorous game spread throughout the British Isles? At present it brings grace, beauty, and healthy exercise to players and spectators mainly in Sussex and parts of Kent. But in Sussex it flourishes so strongly that it is considered unsporting to field a county side. Only a part of Sussex plays the county of Kent.
This is no patball. The bats are made of good sprung willow, shaped like a table tennis bat, but a good deal larger. The balls are every bit as hard and as solid as cricket balls, but somewhat smaller. They are tossed underarm, full pitch to the batswoman, who has to guard a wicket consisting of a wooden “target,” one foot square, mounted about shoulder level like a narrow scoreboard.
The ladies, clad briefly all in white, as for Wimbledon, do battle eleven a side for ordinary matches and eight a side for tournaments, when half a dozen teams rally together in contest for a silver trophy, a cup, a rose bowl, or even a kettle, offered by each individual side.
The village tournaments are marathons of activity, with the scorer using a public address system to hurry sides on to the field. In our village sixty-four overs are played by Sussex maids and matrons from far and wide, travelling by coach, car, and motor-bike.
They wear no ponderous armour, these graceful Amazons. They face the full toss of the hard ball at head-and-shoulder level without gloves or padding. And how they hit out and how they run! No clocking, nicking, or shuffling. Hard, clean hitting, with never a run missed. Swipes to the boundary and into the pavilion. Prodigious catches held by delicate feminine fingers. Fierce and accurate throwing in. A welcome absence of appeals to the (masculine) umpires, of pattings at the pitch, of pensive taking guard.
The ladies allow themselves no portentous dalliance. In stoolball, which might be described as cricket slightly tinged with rounders, the ladies of Sussex and Kent have found a traditional game which meets all the demands of this age for speed and glamour, and brings something of the verve of the ballet to the honoured chock of leather on willow.
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