TALKS WITH CRICKETERS

By Brian Sanderson,

The weather forecast was sunny but windy at Hartlepool where Yorkshire Seconds were playing Durham in a friendly.The club was founded  in May 1855.As you walk in the gates  on the right is a new furnished pavilion which is shown in the above photograph.The orginal was 100 years old.

Durham were batting and we were met by Ian Dewes with a scorecard showing the Yorkshire scorer as M.Snook however he retired two  seasons ago  and Howard Clayton is now second team scorer.Walking round the ground I  sat next to Derek Soakell who played in the match when Durham beat Yorkshire in the Gillette Cup on the 30 th June 1973 at Harrogate.It turned out that he played for Durham from 1966 to 1973.Also he played for Northumberland from 1970 to 1972 and he was a professional in the surrounding leagues.Also joining  us was the Chairman of Northumberland Cricket club.The two hours up to lunch soon flew by with cricket talk.

After lunch Derek was talking to Mike Gough who played for Hartlepool and is the father of Michael Gough ,the first class umpire.During the afternoon we were joined my John Winn who had travelled up by train.One of the name mention was Peter Kippax who played a number of years at Hartlepool with Mike Gough.
One of Mike opening partners was Tony Vann who was a member of the Yorkshire Committee and ex Chairman of the Northern Cricket Society.The pair were known as a  artistic opening partnership ie Van Gough.By this time it was tea-time.

After tea I was joined by Paul Farbrace who had just been to Sri Lanka and Barbados on cricket tours with Yorkshire.To-day he had gloves on and well wrapped up for the cold. Myself and two Durham supporters listen to his ideas on present day cricket.After he left I wondered over to chat to Jack Leaning who was fielding on the boundary.This week-end he will play his first league match with York in the Yorkshire League and next week he will be playing at Scarborough with the Yorkshire Seconds.Then over to Cheshire to play Lancashire.

All this time Durham reached 307 for 7 with Gareth Breese scoring 110 when they declared and I left the match.Excellent cricket  talk and I borrowed the title from a Old Ebor book. That is worth reading.