The 102 First-Class Cricketing Gentlemen of Philadelphia

In the year 1912 the three Test-playing nations of that time, England, Australia and South Africa, organised a triangular cricket tournament to determine who was the best team. Many thought at the time a fourth team should have been invited. It was not a Test, or even a national team. This team represented a city, an American city at that, the city of Philadelphia.

England won that triangular tournament and the defeated finalists, Australia, stopped off in Philadelphia on their way home and suffered another defeat at the hands of Philadelphia. The ‘Gentlemen of Philadelphia’, as their amateur team was known, had been playing first-class matches since 1878. No one realised then that the end was near. The Australians were to return in 1913 and then the North American tours stopped owing to the Great War. When that conflict ended first-class cricket in Philadelphia had ceased, never to return, and as time went on the Philadelphia team, and their players, faded from memory. One hundred and two gentlemen cricketers represented Philadelphia in eighty-eight first-class games over a thirty-five year period. This is the story of those players and the team that achieved so much in such an unlikely setting.