he also respects the view of Grace's contemporaries that "any match in which he played was elevated in status by his very presence". In May 2022, Wisden updated its records and deleted ten matches from Grace's statistics that did not have first-class status, bringing it in line with the ACS. Other sports Grace was an outstanding athlete as a young man and won the hurdling title at the National Olympian Games at Crystal Palace in August 1866. In addition to running, he was an excellent thrower, as evidenced when he threw a cricket ball during an athletics event at Eastbourne. Grace played football for the Wanderers, although he did not feature in any of their FA Cup-winning teams. In later life, after his family moved to Mottingham, Kent, he became very interested in lawn bowls. He founded the English Bowling Association in 1903 and became its first president. He helped found an international competition with Scotland, Ireland and Wales, captaining England from the inaugural international at Crystal Palace in 1903 until 1908. He supported the pioneering all-female Womanhood Bowling Club at Crystal Palace by obtaining the use of a club pavilion for them in 1902. He was also keen on curling. His interest in golf brought him into intimate contact with one of his biographers Bernard Darwin, who said that Grace played golf "with a mixture of keen seriousness and cheerful noisiness". He could drive straight and sometimes putt well but, for reasons that Darwin could not understand, "he never could play an iron shot well". Personal life and medical career Importance of family Despite living in London for many years, Grace never lost his Gloucestershire accent. His entire life, including his cricket and medical careers, is inseparable from his close-knit family background which was strongly influenced by his father Henry Grace, who set great store by qualifications and was determined to succeed. He passed this attitude on to each of his five sons. Therefore, like his father and his brothers, Grace chose a professional career in medicine, though because of his cricketing commitments he did not complete his qualification as a doctor until 1879 when he was 31 years old. Married life and medical career Grace was married on 9 October 1873 to Agnes Nicholls Day (1853–1930), who was the daughter of his first cousin William Day. Two weeks later, they began their honeymoon by taking ship to Australia