NO HAND PULLED BITTER IN IDLE

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By Brian Sanderson,

It had been raining all Friday and early Saturday morning which always makes life difficult for p.c.w. .You have to find out which matches are on  and will it stay fine.

At I.OOPM.I decided to go to see Idle against Great Horton in the Second Division of the Bradford League as it was nearby and you can watch the match from the car when it gets cold.These two sides last season were the bottom two sides of the division but both had won last week.

The Idle ground is situated on Cavendish Road and the club has played there  since 1889 and joined the Bradford League in 1906.One of the famous players for the club was Sir Jack Hobbs who played for them for three seasons from 1915. On one occasion the club,s opening pair were Hobbs and Wilfred Rhodes.The club has won the First Division title for six occassions and the Second Division three times . They have also won  six Priestley Cups.

To-day there was crowd of about twelve supporters scattered round the ground during the 1950,s the ground would have been full . How times have changed and the population of Idle is 40 per cent of pensionable age unlike it was in 1950,s.

Idle batted first  and by the thirty over they had scored 63 for 4 with the open bat scoring 35 runs in 112 minutes.They struggled to the fifty over to score 123.Great Horton best bowler Jawad too 4 for 38.

Above is the changing rooms and tea hut which is situated on top off a large slope.

Photograph looking towards Leeds with the players taking a drink of orange.

The ground on one side has four radio masts and with the rent from them help the club to keep going.After tea Grat Horton batted against Idle opening bowler called Cumming who comes from New Zealand.He took two wickets for 26.However Great Horton to struggle to reach the total and were all out for 78 in 32.2 overs.One interesting situation arised when a Idle fielder had to leave the field when he had hurt his hand.
Great Horton were kind enough to supply a substitute fielder but after twenty overs they removed the substitute fielder leaving Idle with ten fielders.So the Idle injured fielder had to get changed and come back on the field to help his team.Never seen that before and I hope never will again.

The title of the blog is due to a power failure in the area which caused the club to have no power and had to sell bottle beer only.

Let hope the weather is fine to-morrow.