Fuller Pilch

Pilch played in a total of 229 first-class matches for an assortment of teams, but mostly for Norfolk and Kent.

[3] In 1833, in highly publicised single wicket matches, Pilch twice defeated Tom Marsden, another prominent batsman of the time.

[5] Demand for his services as a cricketer led him to move to Town Malling, Kent in 1835 and receive a salary of 100 pounds a year.

[3] The main characteristic of his batting was his forward play,[further explanation needed] using a shot that was called "Pilch's poke".

[citation needed] Though his statistics may seem fairly ordinary as reflected by modern standards, the ten centuries he amassed throughout his entire club and first-class playing career were considered "remarkable" in the context of the roundarm bowling and poorly maintained cricket pitches he encountered during his career.

[3] As to the question of how Pilch would compare with the greatest of his successors, editor Sydney Pardon wrote in W. G. Grace's obituary in the 1916 edition of Wisden:[citation needed] A story is told of a cricketer who had regarded Fuller Pilch as the final word in batting, being taken in his old age to see Mr. Grace bat for the first time.

[citation needed] Pilch is mentioned in the song "Gentlemen and Players" on the 2009 cricket concept album The Duckworth Lewis Method, created by Irish duo Thomas Walsh and Neil Hannon.

Pilch is remembered on the village sign at Horningtoft