[perisher]

Originally Posted by Beery

Well, at least we won the Ashes the last time we played at home for them. I just wish I could have seen it live. America is a fine place to live, but you can't get live test matches on TV here so, in that sense at least, it really is a desperately uncivilized country. It's incredible to think that the first international cricket match (in fact the first international sporting contest of any kind in the modern era) was between the US and Canada and took place on Long Island - I mean you'd think that they'd have some reverence for their place in cricket's history.

I read somewhere that cricket was as popular as baseball up until the Civil War. Baseball took over because large groups of men had been brought together in the armies with very little to actually do, so they played baseball because it requires less equipment than cricket.

As for the Flying Dutchman, he was once sighted by HMS Bacchante off Northern Australia, amongst those who saw him was Midshipman HRH Prince George of Wales, later King George V.

"At 4 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars, and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there was no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her...At 10.45 a.m. the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms." (from King George V, Kenneth Rose, 1988)