Editing Frederick, Prince of Wales (section)

==Cricket==
By the time Frederick arrived in Great Britain, [[cricket]] had developed into the country's most popular team sport, and it thrived on gambling. Perhaps because he wished to anglicise and so fit in with society, Frederick developed an academic interest in cricket and soon became a genuine enthusiast. He began to make wagers and then to patronise and play the sport, even forming his own team on several occasions.

The earliest mention of Frederick in cricket annals is in a contemporary report of a match on 28 September 1731 between [[Surrey county cricket teams|Surrey]] and [[London Cricket Club|London]], played on [[Kennington Common]]. No post-match report was found despite advance promotion as "likely to be the best performance of this kind that has been seen for some time". The records show that "for the convenience of the gamesters, the ground is to be staked and roped out"&nbsp;– a new practice in 1731 and possibly done partly for the benefit of a royal visitor. The advertisement refers to "the whole county of Surrey" as London's opponents and states that the Prince of Wales is "expected to attend".<ref name=DC>[[H. T. Waghorn]], ''The Dawn of Cricket'', Electric Press, 1906.</ref>

In August 1732, the ''[[Whitehall Evening Post]]'' reported that Frederick attended "a great cricket match" at Kew on 27 July.<ref name=GB18>[[G. B. Buckley]], ''Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket'', Cotterell, 1935.</ref>

By the 1733 season, Frederick was seriously involved in the game, in effect as a county cricketer for Surrey.<ref>Marples, Morris ''Poor Fred and the Butcher : Sons of George II'' London 1970 p41 {{ISBN|0718108167}}</ref> He was said to have given a guinea to each player in a Surrey vs. [[Middlesex county cricket teams|Middlesex]] game at [[Moulsey Hurst]].<ref name=CS/> Then he awarded a silver cup to a combined Surrey and Middlesex team which had just beaten [[Kent county cricket teams|Kent]], arguably the best county team at the time, at Moulsey Hurst on 1 August.<ref name=CS>[[H. T. Waghorn]], ''Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730–1773)'', Blackwood, 1899.</ref> This is the first reference in cricket history to any kind of trophy (other than hard cash) being contested. On 31 August, the Prince of Wales XI played [[Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet|Sir William Gage]]'s XI on Moulsey Hurst. The result is unknown but the teams were said to be of county standard, so presumably it was in effect a Surrey vs. Sussex match.<ref name=TJM>[[Timothy J. McCann]], ''Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century'', Sussex Record Society, 2004.</ref>

In the years following 1733, there are frequent references to the Prince of Wales as a patron of cricket and as an occasional player.

When he died on 31 March 1751, cricket suffered a double blow as his death closely followed that of [[Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond]], the game's greatest financial patron at the time. The number of top-class matches declined for several years.