Albert Cordingley (13 May 1871 – 27 April 1945) was an English professional cricketer from Yorkshire who played first-class cricket for Sussex in the early years of the 20th century.
Cordingley turned professional at age 22, becoming a club pro at Lytham in Lancashire and compiling four seasons of increasingly impressive performances which brought him to the attention of Yorkshire, who hired him at the end of 1897 as a potential replacement for left-arm spin bowler Bobby Peel, who had been dismissed. He played for the Yorkshire 2nd XI the following year, as well as in one non first-class match with the first XI against Worcestershire, but then rejected the offer of a place in the Yorkshire first team squad as backup to Wilfred Rhodes and returned to club cricket, this time at Wiseton in Nottinghamshire. Again he was spotted by a first-class county, and after a successful private trial he was offered a contract by Sussex and accepted despite the fact that he would have to wait two years before officially qualifying to play for his new county.
He moved south and determinedly worked his way back up from club cricket to make his first-class debut in 1901 at the age of 30 for Sussex. His two best performances for the county both occurred early in the following season; he took a five-wicket haul against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, and shared a record 115-run 9th-wicket partnership with test-player "Ranji" (K. S. Ranjitsinhji) against Surrey at The Oval, going on to appear in 10 matches for the Sussex first XI that season. He was sparingly used though, bowling just over 100 overs, and was dropped from the first team for the following two seasons but stayed contracted to Sussex and was recalled in 1905 to play four final matches for them.
Following his relatively short first-class career, he returned to full-time club cricket in 1906 and played until 1911 for East Grinstead, serving as the club pro from 1907. He remained involved in cricket for the rest of his life, devoting over 25 years to the village club at Pease Pottage, near Crawley, Sussex, as a player, coach, groundsman, and umpire after joining it in 1912, as well as making guest appearances for several other Sussex clubs. Having honed his groundskeeping skills earlier in his career at Lytham and Wiseton, and on the ground staff at Hove, he prepared a pitch at Pease Pottage that was considered to be of county cricket standard, seeing some of the highest batting totals in Sussex scored on it. The cricket ground was ploughed up in 1940 after the advent of World War II to serve as allotments for the war effort, and the club disbanded after many of its players had left to join the British armed forces.
Among the most notable wickets he took at different stages of his career as a bowler were those of John Tunnicliffe, Arthur Shrewsbury, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was also a substitute fielder for Yorkshire in a match against M.C.C. at Lord's in 1898 and took to the pitch while W. G. Grace, one of the greatest cricketers of all time, was batting.
Early life and development as an amateur cricketer (1871–1893) Albert was born at Low Fold, Greengates, near Bradford, in the Spring of 1871 to Joseph Cordingley, a drier at the local wool mill, and his wife Esther, daughter of a canal boatman. He had three elder brothers and three sisters, and the family started out poor but were aspiring. His father would leave the mill in the 1870s to set up shop as a furniture dealer, becoming a respected tradesman in nearby Eccleshill, and his brothers James, William and Harry would become, respectively, a publican, a carter, and a coppersmith. Their younger brother Albert initially followed their father into mill work, and by age 20 had worked his way up to the supervisory position of overlooker.
The young cricketer began his competitive career as a youth with local side Greengates Church Cricket Club, who competed mainly in the Bradford League, and in whose church, St John's, his youngest sister Laura would be baptised in September 1894. In May 1890, having just turned 19 years old, he played one of his first ever organised competitive fixtures, taking 3 wickets in a low-scoring loss to Bingley Primitives, but then dominated a second match against the same team in July, batting at number 1 and taking 7 wickets.
The following season he stepped up a level and began playing for the neighbouring Eccleshill Club, whose league cricket was played in the Airedale and Wharfedale League. He took 7 wickets for Eccleshill in a 26-run victory at Chickenly in June 1892, and the following season helped them to a third-place league finish, along the way claiming a hat-trick as part of a five-wicket haul for 27 runs in a convincing 21-run victory over fellow title-chasers Guiseley. One of his final performances for Eccleshill came in late September 1893 in a 31-run victory over Spen Victoria. Coincidentally, 46 years later Eccleshill would win its first ever Priestley Cup by defeating the same Spen Victoria in the final, and Albert's name would be mentioned in newspaper reports as being one of its best former players.
Professional cricket career (1894–1920)
Lytham, Lancashire (1894–1897) Cordingley, a slightly built man of below-average height, began his professional career at the age of 22, when he was engaged in April 1894 as professional at Lytham, and he had four increasingly successful seasons with the club. His first season began encouragingly, with the young bowler taking 4 wickets of the 8 to fall in a hefty 98-run victory over Castleton in May 1894, and he helped his club to a ninth successive victory in late July by taking another 4 wickets in a solid 42-run victory over Fylde. In August he was re-engaged for the following year "at a considerably higher salary." Despite Lytham having a poor 1895 season, with a record of 7 wins, 6 draws and 11 losses, Cordingley performed admirably again, finishing with a record of 107 wickets at a cost of 7.35 runs each. He was re-engaged for the 1896 season but, not being required in Lancashire until later in April, he was able to play a game for his old club Eccleshill against neighbours Idle on the 18th, showing that he was keeping in touch with his cricketing roots in Yorkshire. He had another fine year in Lancashire in 1896, and in one match towards the end of the season in August took 9 of the 10 wickets to fall in a thumping 85-run victory over visitors East Lancashire Wanderers. At the beginning of August 1897, after four seasons during which he had rendered "yeoman service" to Lytham, according to an account in the Blackpool Gazette, he was allocated a benefit match against Lancaster, which Lytham handily won by a score of 151 to 82, in no small part due to their Yorkshire professional, who took 7 wickets for 16 runs. The event was expected to have netted Cordingley "a nice sum", since many tickets had been sold and the attendance was good. In possibly his final appearance for the club, in early September 1897 against Broughton, he secured an easy 54-run victory by again taking 7 wickets in an innings.
Yorkshire County Cricket Club (1897–1898) Towards the end of the 1897 season, Cordingley came to the attention of his native county team and he competed with Wilfred Rhodes for a place in the Yorkshire first team after the sacking of bowling all-rounder Bobby Peel for misconduct. While Cordingley was usually classified nominally as a slow left-arm bowler, The Daily Argus, a Bradford newspaper, noted that he had a technically good bowling action and could effectively alter the pace he bowled the ball, the Yorkshire Post described him as a "medium-paced bowler", and The Manchester Guardian recorded that he "bowls medium pace, and keeps a remarkably good length." Whatever Cordingley's pace of delivery was at the time, he was as well qualified for a bowling role with Yorkshire as Rhodes: there were excellent reports from his time at Lytham and early bowling results with Yorkshire actually favoured Cordingley, who was also six years Rhodes' senior.
A trial match to uncover new bowling talent for Yorkshire was staged at the end of the 1897 season at Park Avenue, Bradford beginning on 20 September between Yorkshire and a selection of promising colt players from around the county. Cordingley handily outperformed his younger rival in the match, finishing the first day's play with the impressive figures of 8 wickets for 33 runs off 21 overs for Yorkshire against the Colts. Remarkably, the slow left-armer's return might have been even better: he was unlucky to have two easy catches missed off his bowling by senior players, one of the culprits being the fielder at mid-off, the Yorkshire captain Lord Hawke, who ironically was a strict disciplinarian notorious for taking a very dim view of dropped catches. In contrast, Rhodes toiled away for 15 overs against the county, conceding 61 runs for the sole wicket of Robert Collinson. The Sporting Life singled out Cordingley's performance for praise, qualifying him as a bowler who "keeps a remarkably good length". For the second day of the match, it was decided to see what Cordingley could achieve against the senior team and he did not disappoint, opening the bowling for the Colts and dismissing both Yorkshire's talented all-rounder Frank Milligan and the unfortunate Collinson, both out bowled, at a cost of 41 runs off 18 overs. Switching sides again and taking yet another Colts' wicket, Cordingley finished the game with superb aggregate figures of 11 wickets for 95 runs from 47 overs, whereas Rhodes took just one Colts' wicket in the second innings to finish with a return of 2 wickets for 99 runs from 27 overs in the match. The Yorkshire Committee were impressed with Cordingley's performance and approached him informally to see if he might be interested in joining his native county club; a measure of the man is that his first response was to tell them that, since he was still employed by Lytham and they had "treated him so kindly", he would need to consult with them before agreeing to anything with Yorkshire. Lytham duly informed Cordingley that they would reluctantly release him. Despite Rhodes' relatively lacklustre figures, he had shown promise in the trial game, so when the Yorkshire Committee met in Sheffield on 6 October to discuss arrangements for the following season, it was decided that both Cordingley and Rhodes would be retained.