Wally Hardinge

In a first-class cricket career lasting 32 years from the age of 16, Hardinge scored 33,519 runs and made 75 centuries. He was coached by Captain William McCanlis at Kent's Tonbridge Nursery from the age of 13 and made his debut for the County in August 1902 against Lancashire at Tonbridge at the age of 16. He was the youngest player to make their first-class debut for Kent until 2006 and is still the second youngest debutant for the county. He became a regular in the team in 1907 when he was capped by the county. He played in the four Kent County Championship winning teams of the period between 1906 and 1913 and was named as one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year in 1915. Hardinge was considered a "reliable opening batsman" who became "one of the mainstays of the Kent eleven" by 1911. He passed 1,000 runs for a season 18 times and scored more than 2,000 runs five times, his best season being 1928 when, at 42 years of age, he scored 2,446 runs at an average of just under 60 runs per innings. He scored centuries in four consecutive innings in 1913 and four times scored centuries in both innings of a match. In 1921, he became only the third cricketer, after C. B. Fry and Warwick Armstrong, to score a double-century and a century in the same match. His one appearance in Test cricket came against Armstrong's touring Australian team in 1921 at Headingley in a match where Jack Hobbs had to withdraw on the opening day because of appendicitis. Hardinge scored 25 and 5 and was…

As a footballer, Hardinge played as an inside forward during the cricket off-season. He played for amateur clubs Eltham, Tonbridge and Maidstone United in Kent before signing for Newcastle United in 1905. After two and a half years there, mainly as a reserve, he moved to Sheffield United in 1907 for a fee of £350. There he flourished, playing 152 games in six seasons and scoring 46 goals, becoming one of the trickiest inside forwards in the game. Whilst at Bramall Lane he won one England cap in 1910 against Scotland at Hampden Park in the 1909–10 British Home Championship. In the summer of 1913 Hardinge returned to the south, signing for Woolwich Arsenal (who had just moved into their new Highbury ground, and would drop the "Woolwich" from their name a year later), and played there either team of World War I. He made 70 wartime appearances for the team whilst serving as a mechanic during the war and played for an England team against Scotland in an RAF International match in 1919. He retired as a professional footballer in 1921, having played 55 times and scored 14 goals for the Gunners' first team.

Hardinge was born in 1886 at Greenwich in Kent. He was the son of William and Ellen Hardinge, his father being a seaman.