George Christopher Collins (21 September 1889 – 23 January 1949) was an English

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er, who played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

and

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 118–121.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 7 August 2022.) Born in

Gravesend, Kent Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Rochester, it is t ...

, Collins played at both Gravesend and at Cobham, where his father

Christopher Christopher is the English language, English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek language, Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or ''Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Jesus ...

had played under the captaincy of Ivo Bligh, 8th Earl of Darnley. His father was subsequently groundsman at the

Bat and Ball Ground The Bat & Ball Ground is a cricket and sports ground in Gravesend in Kent. The ground was used as a first-class cricket venue by Kent County Cricket Club between 1849 and 1971. It remains in use by Gravesend Cricket Club who have used the groun ...

, Gravesend and later ran a sports outfitters in the town, so it was natural that son should follow father into cricket. He played for junior Kent sides from the age of 16, and made his first-class debut during the 1911 season, in a match against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

played in Gravesend. Described in his '' Wisden''

obituary An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

as "a splendid right-arm fast bowler and a useful left-handed batsman", Collins appeared in 218 first-class matches, taking 379

wicket In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

s and scoring 6,280 runs. He also occasionally kept wicket, claiming a

stumping Stumped is a method of dismissing a batsman in cricket, which involves the wicket-keeper putting down the wicket while the batsman is out of his ground. (The batsman leaves his ground when he has moved down the pitch beyond the popping crease ...

off the bowling of

Tich Freeman Alfred Percy "Tich" Freeman (17 May 1888 – 28 January 1965) was an English first-class cricketer. A leg spin bowler for Kent County Cricket Club and England, he is the only man to take 300 wickets in an English season, and is the second most p ...

in a 1922 fixture against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

. His best bowling performance was in 1922, when after taking six wickets in

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

's first innings in a match at

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

Crabble Athletic Ground The Crabble Athletic Ground, also known as simply Crabble, or The Crabble is a football stadium located in the northern Dover suburb of River, Kent. It was the home of the various incarnations of Dover F.C. from 1931 until the club folded in 19 ...

, he took all ten wickets in their second innings to bowl Kent to an innings victory. His match figures of 16 for 83 were the second-best match figures for Kent at the time, and remain to this day the sixth-best in the county's history. Outside cricket Collins was a bellringer at

Milton-next-Gravesend Milton-next-Gravesend is an ecclesiastical parish in the north-west of Kent, England, which is now part of the Gravesend built-up area. History Feudal ownership of land in the parish was the subject of a legal action of 1076, ''Abbot Scotland ...

and an article in ''

The Ringing World The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers (CCCBR) is an organisation founded in 1891 which represents ringers of church bells in the English style. It acts as a co-ordinating body for education, publicity and codifying change ringing rules, a ...

'' published on 2 May 1913 described him as "hold ngthe distinction of being, perhaps, the only first-class cricketer who is a bellringer in this country", a photograph was included with the article. A note on a later page of the same issue stated that former Australian captain, Monty Noble, was also a ringer, and had visited a number of towers in England during his tours.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, George 1889 births 1949 deaths Kent cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Sportspeople from Gravesend, Kent English cricketers English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 Cricketers from Kent