SALTAIRE HERO

By Brian Sanderson,

One  of  my the earliest cricketing heros was Jim Laker.It must have first started watching him win the match at The Old Trafford match  against the Australians.on our black and white television.He was born at Frizinghall in Bradford on the 9 February 1922.Jim played for Saltaire in the Bradford League  and was a batsman who bowled a bit of medium pace.

In the book by Don Mosey called Portrait of a Legend about the life of Jim . He states that Jim was on a list of 35 colts due to be checked by the Yorkshire coach, Arthur ( Ticker ) Mitchell during the winter of 1945-46 .However Jim not go to the net  in stead content to play club cricket 200 miles away in the London area.He was  not the first,or the last, Yorkshireman to slip through the net, of course, but he was undoubtedly the most important one that got away.Thus ,with hindsight, it seems to have been an act of folly when Yorkshire offered no objection to Surrey registration of Jim .

I look at  Yorkshire items on e-bay and last week a saw a scorecard of Spen Victoria against Saltaire dated 1 st June 1946. On that scorecard in the Saltaire team  was the name J.C.Laker who batted number 6 and scored 22  run out. Saltaire had scored 143 for 6 before rain stopped play.On the 17 th July 1946 Jim played in his first match for Surrey against Combiened Services and his first class career had started. The scorecard to me a piece of history with a interesting story about one of the player n the match .All other 21 players would have a story to tell but only one took nineteen wickets in one match and unfortunate they have been lost.

You never now what you will find in cricket memoballia which keeps me interested on a cold winter afternoon and writing this blog.I must thank people for reading the blog eventhough it is not the  English cricket season.