[5] Spofforth spent his early childhood in Hokianga, New Zealand and was later educated privately at the Reverend John Pendrill's Eglinton House on Glebe Road and, for a short time, at Sydney Grammar School.

He was a regular representative of the New South Wales team in intercolonial fixtures and, in the December 1877 game, went in second wicket down to make 25, the highest score in either innings in a low-scoring match.

He had boycotted the First Test because of Jack Blackham's selection as wicket-keeper ahead of Spofforth's close friend and fellow New South Welshman Billy Murdoch.

In this, the second match of the tour, the might of the MCC was dismissed twice in one day at the fortress of English cricket for paltry scores of just 33 and nineteen.

He was the bowler whom English batsmen most feared and is also regarded as the one who first brought into the game, as a scaring technique, eye-to-eye contact with the batsman.

[3] This worked to particularly devastating effect in the match that gave birth to the legendary Ashes series, at The Oval on 29 August 1882.

In their second innings, England required a mere 85 runs to clinch the match, but Spofforth refused to give up – "Boys," he said famously, "this thing can be done"—and led his team to a remarkable victory, one of the closest ever in the history of Test cricket.

In February, Spofforth also played for New South Wales against Lord Harris' tourists in a game that, on the Saturday, descended into the Sydney riot of 1879.

Fred Spofforth played his last Test match in Sydney in January 1887 in which he bowled twelve overs, conceded seventeen runs and took one wicket.

[10] In 1890 Derbyshire was found to be in deep financial crisis and Spofforth played a key part in identifying a fraud that had been committed.

He played club cricket for Hampstead for some years after 1890 and secured a large number of wickets at a low cost.

In England he went into business as a tea-merchant and became the managing director of the Star Tea Company which belonged to his wife's father and was very successful.

Spofforth died on the eve of the 1926 Ashes series (some of which he had wanted to see) from chronic colitis[5] at Long Ditton, Surrey.

Also influencing the general slackening of pace was his discovery that, on the softer English wickets, his break from the off (known then as the "break back") was sharpened when he bowled slower, and only once on the 1882 tour did he resort to his full speed (in unsuccessful retaliation to Grace's perceived as unsporting run-out of Sammy Jones in the Test match).

Using the break back, he was able to have a large proportion of his victims bowled; seven of his ten wickets in the 1878 match against the MCC were taken in that fashion.