Alfred Mynn's Continued Recovery and the Folklore of the Leicester Leg — through the 1840s

Roundarm fast bowling in the 1830s was played without pads or gloves and on rough pitches. Severe leg injuries were common but few bowlers were prepared to bat on through them as Mynn did at Leicester.

The North v South match at Leicester in July 1836 brought together the leading professionals of the day. Mynn was 28 and at his peak as bowler and big-hitter.

The 1836 incident itself, in a North v South match at Leicester, has been described many times: Mynn, bowled at by the fast roundarmer Sam Redgate without pads, took such heavy blows to the right leg that the limb turned black and developed a deep bruise infection. He nonetheless made 125 not out and 21 not out for the South, and (after the match) was reportedly taken to St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, lying flat on the roof of a stage coach — the journey took two days — where the surgeon's verdict was that the leg must be amputated above the knee. According to the story, Mynn refused; the surgeon then drained the abscess and managed to save the limb, though Mynn lay in hospital for many weeks. He returned to first-class cricket in 1837. By the 1840s the Leicester story was the central episode in his folk-hero status. Crowds at his Kent and AEE matches expected to see the great roundarm bowler, the single-wicket champion, and the man who had nearly lost his leg playing the game. The story embedded itself in the cricket press, in the prints sold of Mynn's playing portrait, and in the memorial elegy Prowse wrote on his death in 1861.

Mynn's career continued without further serious injury through the 1840s. The Leicester folklore grew with each retelling; by his death in 1861 the story had become the founding incident of his celebrity.