Arnold Fothergill

Somerset County Cricket Club was founded in 1875, and although they initially struggled financially, Fothergill and Alfred Brooks were employed as the club's first professionals in 1880.[6] Fothergill played his first recorded match for the county in July of that year, facing a team of sixteen men from Weston-super-Mare, taking thirteen wickets in the match.[7] Throughout 1880, he was regularly Somerset's leading wicket-taker in their matches; he collected five wickets in an innings against the Marylebone Cricket Club twice,[8] Hertfordshire,[9] and Leicestershire.[10] In 1881, Fothergill was included in the Somerset team to face Kent in Bath. The Kent captain, Richard Thornton objected to Fothergill's presence, correctly pointing out that he was not qualified to play for Somerset. As a result, Fothergill was removed from the side, and did not appear for the side in county cricket again that season, while he served his qualification. He did appear once for the county, against the MCC, taking four wickets in the first innings, and scoring 47 runs as an opening batsman.[11]

In 1882, Fothergill joined the ground staff at Lord's Cricket Ground, and made his first-class debut for the MCC against Derbyshire in May. Bowling unchanged in the first innings, he claimed five wickets for 31 runs, and then scored the highest score of his first-class career, 74 runs, in a large victory for his side.[12] The following month, he featured for Somerset in what is generally considered to be their first match of the first-class cricket, against Lancashire. Somerset were heavily beaten in the match, during which Fothergill took three wickets and scored three runs.[13] That summer, he was selected to appear for the professional "Players" against the amateur "Gentlemen" in the prestigious annual fixture at Lord's, in which he had little impact as the Gentlemen won by eight wickets.[14] In all, Fothergill played fourteen first-class matches in 1882, claiming 44 wickets at an average of 22.02, and taking five wickets in an innings twice. He was Somerset's leading wicket-taker during the season, taking twice as many wickets as the next most effective bowler, Charles Winter.[15]

Fothergill's first match in 1883 was in a representative match,[lower-alpha 1] playing for the South against the North.[lower-alpha 2][16] The South, for whom Fothergill was the only player to score double figures in each innings, lost the match.[17] He then played exclusively with the MCC until the end of July, when Somerset's fixtures began. Having collected five wickets in an innings for the MCC against Oxford University,[18] Fothergill repeated the feat twice that season for Somerset, taking five for 23 against Gloucestershire,[19] and then achieving his best first-class bowling figures of six for 43 against Hampshire. In the latter match, he also took four wickets in the second innings, giving him ten wickets in the match, the only occasion he achieved the feat in first-class cricket.[20] He played one further match towards the end of the 1883 season, against that year's "Champion County", Nottinghamshire. The MCC won the game by 121 runs; in the first innings, Fothergill was not required to bowl as Nottinghamshire were bowled out for 23, with six players scoring ducks, and he took five for 30 in the second innings.[21] Fothergill was once more Somerset's leading wicket-taker during 1883, taking 27 of his 37 first-class wickets for the county that year. His bowling average of 14.72 was his best during an English season.[22]

During the following season, Fothergill only appeared once for Somerset, in a match against Kent early in the season. He took four for 87 in the match, which was his final first-class appearance for the county.[16][23] Fothergill was again selected to play for the South against the North, but bowled just three overs in the match, without taking a wicket.[24] The remainder of his notable appearances that season were made for the MCC, though few were considered first-class. He performed well in matches against Wiltshire and Leicestershire, taking eleven wickets in each match, including seven for 62 in the second innings against Leicestershire, but neither match had first-class status.[25][26] In 1885, he enjoyed his best match for the South, taking four wickets in each innings as the North were defeated by nine wickets.[27] The majority of his cricket from 1884 until 1886 was made for the MCC, although he did appear four times in 1886 for Somerset, which had been stripped of its first-class status.[28] In contrast, in 1887 and 1888, he played almost exclusively for the county, appearing just three times for the MCC.[5] Somerset, who had relied on the bowling of Fothergill in the early 1880s, were spearheaded by E. W. Bastard, Ted Tyler and Sammy Woods in the late 1880s, and Fothergill was rarely needed to bowl many overs. Despite this, he was presented with a bat during 1888, a reward usually given to batsmen who had scored a century.[29]