Cyril Herbert George Bland - One of us after all

Sussex county cricket team of 1897

Some time ago I blogged about Cyril Bland and said "he could be the only first class cricketer to come out of Boston Grammar School (contact me if you know different)".

Cyril played for Sussex in the 1890s and early years of the 20th century, and ended his own life in an obviously carefully planned suicide near Boston in 1950. You can read more about his life and death in the OBA wiki.

Returning to my opening statement, it was actually I who, in the comments under the original article, started to cast doubt on my statement, not because there were other first class cricketing BGS old boys, but because I realised that when I was originally informed about Bland, it was because members of his family had attended BGS, not the man himself. I put out an appeal "Do you happen to know whether or not Cyril was a student at Boston Grammar School?".

I didn't have to wait too long for an answer from Jack Bates which strongly points to Bland having been a student at the school.

In the Gazette of the Old Bostonian Club of 1901 there is a list of members. One of them is GC Bland of Red Lion Street and another is Cyril Bland, also of Red Lion Street. In the School Notes there are details of school matches. G Bland is a batsman primarily but his scores were 0, 4 and 20. Cyril, in May 1901 was playing for Sussex so I do not know what relationship the two had, apart from the same address. Jack Bates OBE (BGS 1933-41)