The 1894 edition of The Burfordian, reported the following information about the match:
‘On June 26th, eleven of the smallest boys in the school played a team of girls and hush! Tell it not out loud, but the boys were defeated( in a whisper please). The boys went in first and, endeavouring in a highly successful manner to prevent their bats being injured by a blow from the ball, amassed a grand total of 16!
To this the girls replied with 13. Upon their second venture the small boys compiled 47, thanks to Hobbs who made 23 before being caught. The girls thus required 51 runs to win and they accomplished this with 4 wickets in hand. Miss Ethel Cheatle was top scorer with 17 and Misses Matthews and Stephens played extremely well.
Many of the young ladies showed signs of careful coaching. A return match has been arranged for July 24th , at the Stephen’s farm in Taynton.’
What makes this match interesting ,is that it is considered to be the first reference to a girls v boys match, anywhere in the world! We know that the girls team was made up of the daughters of the staff, as Burford was, at that time, an all boys school, and that they had been coached, but other than that we don’t know very much more. However, interestingly this match coincided with the future England and Gloucestershire Cricketer, Gilbert Jessop’s time at Burford and it would be wonderful to think that he might have had some involvement in this match, either as a coach and /or possibly as one of the umpires!