favourite haunts

posted by John Winn

With a few days in Herefordshire planned this week I decided to keep driving to a minimum yesterday and took the train to Darlington. Whence, refreshed by a drink with old friends in The Red Lion, I took the bus out to Haughton le Skerne and the short walk  to the small village of Great Burdon where Haughton CC have played since at least the time of the photograph above which was taken in 1906. The man seated on the grass holding the ball is my grandfather John Winn and the smartly dressed scorer my father's oldest brother, Roland Winn,

I have written about visits to the ground in previous postings but I think I can be excused returning to it from time to time for it was where I first saw organised cricket and although the Winn family is no longer connected with the club the current first eleven skipper is a relation of mine but on my mother's side of the family. The attraction of yesterday's game was that it pitted second (Haughton) against first (Rockcliffe Park) in the A Division of the Darlington and District League. Games between these two sides go back at least 80 years and possibly even to the time of the photograph.

Haughton had won the toss and on a freshly prepared wicket had chosen to field. The wicket was lively and the opening bowlers used it well and it is credit to their sparing use of the short pitched ball that the first two wickets were bowled by good length deliveries. When I left after an hour the team from Hurworth, not far from the Croft motor racing circuit, had reached forty for four. Clearly they rallied well for 'play cricket' this morning shows they made 178 for 7 off their 40 overs. In an exciting finish the hosts won by two wickets with a ball to spare.

I caught the bus back to Darlington and walked down to Feethams where Darlington CC, a big hitter in the NYSD were taking on the itinerant Normanby Hall (see Nomadic Normanby 20/5/13) The principal object of my visit was to check out the progress of the development of the football ground ahead of four days of cricket at this most attractive of grounds starting tomorrow when Durham II entertain the Foxes' cubs in an SET game. This is to be followed by a three day game beginning on Tuesday. The spectre of a procession of builders' lorries down the river side of the ground while play was in progress had cropped up in conversation at Pudsey on Friday but rest easy gentlemen, for the national buddleia collection is thriving and just this last week club chairman Brian Johnson expressed his disappointment that work had not yet begun. Further good news is that the refreshments looked as mouth watering as ever

When I arrived the Normanby tail was mounting something of a recovery from 78 for 7 but were eventually out for 116, never likely to be a winning total. Despite the loss of two early wickets Darlington got home by 7 wickets with time to spare and after sixteen games are second in the table a point behind Marton.