After the rigours of scoring for four and a half hours on Saturday I decided a leisurely day was in order yesterday and made the short trip to Goldsborough near Knaresborough where the first round tie in the Atkinson Swires cup was a repeat of the previous day's league fixture with Helperby. Saturday's event had been a low scoring game with Goldsborough all out for 117 and with the visitors losing eight wickets before getting home. Top scorer for Goldsborough was West Australian Jack Joy.
Six overs had elapsed when I arrived at the Station Road ground with Helperby 26 without loss. The introduction of Ben Mackrill and Karthik Mani into the attack slowed the scoring rate and by the time drinks were taken after 21 overs the score stood at 80 for 2. The Goldsborough ground is a neat, tidy ground and recent events and successful teams are preserved in a good collection of photographs in the pavilion. There is a record of a match played against Great Ouseburn in 1842, a fixture that is maintained more than 170 years later in the Nidderdale League.
Checking the excellent league website this morning I saw that Helperby had made 204 off their 40 overs but Goldsborough had reached their target with three overs and four wickets in hand. They will now play Blubberhouses away in the quarter finals. From Goldsborough I drove for about fifteen minutes to Spofforth on the Harrogate to Wetherby Road. Here the home team were taking on Alne in another tie in the same competition. The spacious and very well appointed School Lane ground is helpfully sign posted from the village main street. I had last visited it in 2009 when Spofforth were members of the Wetherby League of which they were founder members after the First World War. Their membership was not continuous, they spent some years in the Harrogate League, and in 2011 they sought a fresh challenge in the Nidderdale League and the two XIs were placed in divisions two and five respectively. This seems to have been the right decision for in their first season the first eleven were promoted and last year finished mid table in the first division. The second XI seemed to have found their niche in Div 5 when they finished eighth of twelve but are currently bottom and well off the pace.
A decent crowd had assembled to enjoy the cricket and sunshine and a flurry of boundaries in the last three overs took Alne to 219 for 5, Pete Carr top scoring with 71 not out. I took the time to investigate the clubroom and was gifted a copy of the excellent yearbook which contains the usual fixtures, averages and award winners and what looked like a very healthy balance sheet. When I left after about an hour of the home team innings they had lost a couple of wickets and I rather thought they might struggle to pass Alne's total but the scorecard on the website shows that opener Will Long made 126 and with 47 from Tom Clark who had taken 3 for 18 off his 8 overs ,Spofforth won by six wickets with an over to spare. They will visit Darley in the next round on June 23rd. Let's hope for a day like yesterday.
And finally despite the loss of Strauss to the first class game you may have noticed how cricket continues to be melodic with Wagner in New Zealand's test side, Elgar having replaced Pieterson at Somerset, what a pity he didn't go to New Road and Boult although suffering from a side strain also in action at Headingley. Let's hope he is soon able to take up the baton again.
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