In yesterday's posting I described a visit made the day before to Kirk Hammerton CC, just off the A59 road between York and Harrogate, and the village's connection with the Stanyforth family, in particular Ronald Stanyforth of Oxford University, Yorkshire and England who remarkably captained England in four tests against South Africa before he played for county cricket. I have written about Stanyforth in a previous posting but seeking to discover more of the family's links to Kirk Hammerton I yesterday googled Kirk Hammerton Cricket Club and amongst a number of links I found one that led me to an article in the Ripon Gazette from 2007 when the club celebrated 100 years of cricket at the Mill Lane ground. The club can trace back cricket in the village well into the 19th century but had no permanent ground until Edward Stanyforth gave some land within the hall grounds and 15 year old Rony(sic) played his first cricket there.
A theme of yesterday's posting was my disappointment at the number of teams in my area that had to concede matches on Saturday because of a shortage of players. Before I switched my plans and decided to stay local I had intended to visit some grounds in the Langbaurgh and Cleveland Leagues starting with a match at Nunthorpe CC who were listed to play Smith's Dock in a first team Cleveland League match. Looking in today's Northern Echo for the result of the match it records that Smith's Dock A conceded, so what would have been a wasted journey saved but curiously I note that Smith's Dock B did play, albeit not very well for they were dismissed by Dormanstown for 34 and lost by ten wickets. Things get worse for of the five matches scheduled for play in the league on Saturday a total of three were not played due to sides conceding. A very worrying state of affairs for the league one imagines but not a new one for in 2010 the Middlesbrough local paper Thad a headline 'Cleveland League numbers dwindling'. And while I am on this topic it is not confined to the lower echelons of league cricket for Sedgefield CC, doomed to relegation from the ECB NYSD Premier League played two men short against leaders Darlington on Saturday.
On a cheerier note Brian and I have posted a number of pictures of rollers on the blog in recent months. I saw this little gem tucked away at Whixley on Saturday and pleasingly and somewhat unusually it has the maker's name, H Bushell and Sons of York on the handle. And the fun doesn't stop there for stick the venerable Bushell name in a search engine and you will find a number of links to the makers and their family history and the range of agricultural implements they made. These include an antique straw chopper which came up for sale at a local auction.
Probably the first straw chopper to appear on a cricketing website.
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