‘FIDDLER’ ON THE TURF
‘Hair Oil’ Makes Pitch Perfect
In the year when the custodian of the famed Trent Bridge pitch changes from Steve Birks to Andrew Selway-Duncan it is interesting to look back at some of the characters to precede Steve and Andrew.
Before Steve there was the late Rob Allsop and, going further back, Frank and Harry Dalling, Walter Marshall and Arthur Widdowson (among others).
Scroll back 150 years and there arrived at Trent Bridge one of the true characters of that Golden Age – William ‘Fiddler’ Walker who was appointed groundsman in 1876.
Walker, from Radcliffe on Trent, was already aged 50 when appointed and was always recalled as a ‘little old man with white hair and whiskers’. But he brought a long career as a gardener and green keeper with him and applied all his skills to revive the Trent Bridge playing surface.
As an indication of the need for revival, Nottinghamshire played five matches at Trent Bridge in Fiddler’s first season (1876), won only one, versus Surrey, lost two and drew two.
He transformed the wicket by applications of what he called his ‘hair-oil’ – the Nottinghamshire marl that soon became well-known throughout England and was sold to groundsmen everywhere.
This red marl – locally known as Cotgrave Marl and elsewhere as Nottinghamshire Marl – came primarily from the Cotgrave Marlpit. It might seem that any ‘pit’ in Cotgrave must have some association with the town’s colliery but the digging of red marl precedes the coal pit by well over a century.
There are several references in histories and reminiscences of Cotgrave to the Marlpit that show it was in use by farmers and – as one local memoir says – ‘for Cricket Ground use’ through most of the 19th century. Indeed, another memoirist says that ‘marl…was distributed all over the world, as far away as Australia.’
Walker apparently even sold his marl to rivals Lancashire.
Much of what we know about Fiddler Walker comes from the Reminiscences of Notts legend Richard Daft, Nottinghamshire skipper in 1876, who waxed lyrical about the great man.
One of Daft’s anecdotes tells how: “he (Walker) was invited to inspect the Old Trafford cricket ground and recommended application of the Nottingham ‘hair oil’!
“Several truck loads were afterwards despatched to Old Trafford.”
Fiddler was delighted with his reception in Manchester, speaking of ‘the princely manner’ in which they (the Lancashire Executive) had treated him.
This rather flowery language seems typical of what we know of the man. According to Richard Daft, and other contemporary accounts, Walker had a habit of addressing his wicket in the first person:
“I’m better this match than ever I was”, he might say in answer to a query about the pitch. “They’ll never be able to wear me out; I shall be just as good on the third day as I was on the first.
“So-and-so can never get runs unless he bats on me.”
It is not easy to think of Steve Birks or Ron Allsop speaking of the wickets they tended in such terms.
This therefore was the beginning of the famous traditional Trent Bridge wicket. A comment made some fifty years after Walker retired, observed that ‘the wicket was still as good on the third day and in the end the Committee had to dig it all up and take it away!’
Whether the ‘hair oil’ and Fiddler’s skills made a difference it is hard to say definitively at this distance but the years that followed his appointment were stellar ones for his home county. Between 1876 and 1889, Nottinghamshire was awarded the title of Champion County outright four times and shared the title in four other years.
Although Richard Daft gives us the origin of Walker’s nick-name – his was a musical family and William’s father, William senior, was called ‘Fiddler’ after his prowess on the instrument and his son inherited both the talent and the nick-name – he also mentions in his book that in his later years, Fiddler was less reverentially referred to as ‘The Old Buffer’.
He certainly kept going into old age – retiring in 1893 (when he would have been 67 – a good age for that era) and handing over the custody of his precious wicket and ‘hair oil’ to his son Tom, who also was known as ‘Fiddler’.
In addition to being an innovative and successful groundsman and a more than competent fiddler, William Walker was also apparently a champion skittles player and not beyond a little hustling at the game if the opportunity arose. He only came unstuck once when his apparently naïve opponent was, as Daft puts it, “the renowned Mr Blatherwick (now there’s another local cricket name) of Nottingham.” Fiddler lost with good grace by all accounts.
Daft finished his memories of Fiddler with this ringing praise: “I have known Old Walker for more than forty years and I never wish to find a better workman or a more straightforward and honest man”.
Now that sort of reputation is something that Fiddler and his ‘hair oil’ can share with Steve Birks…
April 2026