Winter Warmers

Posted by John Winn

If you really can't wait until April 1st to see some cricket then here are two games you might like to consider

Saturday Jan 3rd at St Chad's Headingley  wickets pitched 12 noon a charity match in aid of Sue Ryder Wheatfields Hospice

Sunday 11th Jan the traditional Malhamdale v Appletreewick match. Meet at Buck Inn Malhamdale 12:30: wickets pitched later than 12:30. Your guess is as good as anybody's

Thanks to Tony Hutton for passing these on to me.

Happy New Year

 

 

The tea room pictured in my last posting will have been familiar to many pcws. It was of course the famous Red Cabin at Todmorden CC

Canadian Capers

posted by John Winn

Film and TV have not always been kind to sport. After all, actors are not athletes nor vice versa and while Chariots of Fire won 4 Oscars these were for the story and  Vangelis' music rather  than Nigel Havers' running style. Cricket has made occasional screen appearances. I seem to remember somebody being murdered in the score box on Midsomer Murders and of course FS Trueman made a memorable appearance in an episode of Dad's Army. (The Test 1970). One of my favourite TV moments  centred on cricket comes in an episode of Ever Decreasing Circles from 1984 when Martin Brice's next door neighbour, the gentleman amateur and Cambridge Blue, Paul, played by Peter Egan with the late Richard Briers as Martin, strikes the ball to all parts to win the match. Egan had never played cricket but clever camera work almost makes you think you might be watching Ted Dexter. Almost.

On the big screen I recall 'The Final Test' from 1954 starring Jack Warner as Sam Palmer, an ageing cricketer rather than an ageing policeman, playing his last test match. Len Hutton, Denis Compton, Alec Bedser, Godfrey Evans, Jim Laker, Cyril Washbrook and John Arlott all playing themselves make up a decent supporting cast and the substance of a decent cricket team. My clearest memory of this film, not seen for years, is when Richard Wattis (credited as cricket fan in stand), is asked by an enthusiastic American if the game is going to be exciting. Wattis replies in the sardonic style of which he was the master, 'I hope not'.

Somewhere between the sitcom and the cinema screen is the TV movie and here my favourite is a film by the late husband of Maureen Lipman, Jack Rosenthal, with the perhaps puzzling title, P'tang, Yang Kipperbang. This early Channel Four film gets an airing now and again and is a delightful comedy starring Alison Steadman. The story centres on young Alan Duckworth, and his largely unrequited love for his classmate Ann. Quack Quack Duckworth (get it?) is a keen cricketer and a sub plot in the story centres on an affair between his English teacher (Steadman) and the school grounds man. In his fantasies, other than those he has about Ann, Duckworth, surely the name is no coincidence for Rosenthal was a Lancastrian, sees himself as an England cricketer playing against Miller and Lindwall in the 1948 series with commentary by, you've guessed, John Arlott. Wonderful!

My most recent experience of cricket on screen came just before Christmas at my local film society at Ripon. The film, Le Grande Seduction, a French Canadian production was billed as a comedy which indeed it was. The action is set on a remote island off the Quebec coast. In order to be chosen as a site for a new factory the islanders need to recruit a doctor and the film describes their attempts to seduce a young doctor from Montreal to take up full-time residency. In advance they learn that he is a cricket enthusiast and try to dupe him into believing they are like minded, which they categorically are not, and their attempts to do so are very funny. Alas the scriptwriter seems to have learned his cricket from baseball for bowlers are pitchers and when, on a tv screen in a bar, we see footage of Ramprakash batting against N'tini, his sumptuous cover drive pierces 'the right field'. The natives can't wait to turn back to the ice hockey. Still the whole thing went down well with the Ripon audience and if you don't mind subtitles I can recommend the film not just for its cricket content.

Season's Greeting to our readers, today is 37 seconds longer than yesterday, all at the end of the day, so the evenings are drawing out and if you accept April 1st as the start of the 2015 season then the there are just over 13 weeks to go. If that is not enough to get you excited then why not dazzle friends and family with movie trivia by letting them know that Richard Wattis was born in Wednesbury and his uncle was MP for Walsall from 1924 to 29. Be honest you didn't expect to learn that when you started reading what purports to be a cricket blog.

 

 

Spot the tea room. Answer next time. 

CRICKET ROUND THE WORLD

By Brian Sanderson

Christmas day comes alive for me when I can settle down to watch some Test cricket. The first match at 10 P.M was New Zealand against Sri Lanka on a new Test ground.This was the Hagley  Oval in Canterbury which seemed a beautiful ground with grass mounds that people could watch the match. On the first ball Lamal fell over on the green pitch.This was followed by Eranga falling over on his first ball causing a ten minute break for the ground staff to try and solve the problem.I was able to see Kane Williamson for a few overs before watching the Australian Test match against Pakistan in Melbourne.

I thought I would have the pleasure of watching Warner scoring quick runs but he was soon out caught by a good slip catch  by Dhawan of Yadav. So I was left to watch Chris Rogers ex Middlesex and Shane Watson. By 12.30 I had enough and went to bed.

Boxing Day these days is Northern Cricket Society against North Leeds . After picking my sister up ,I found North Leeds struggling.

The photograph shows the score when we arrived in a twenty over match. However I had the pleasure then to watch Rob Winter for North Leeds score 98 not out in a total of 144.It would have been fit for him to score a century.

At the end of the first innings I had to leave to go home for Boxing Day lunch.After which I watched the first day of South Africa against the West Indies at Port Elizabeth which had also grass mounds for the spectators.I watched Dean Elgar score his highest Test score of 121.Looking at his career it follows the path of a lot of South Africans  ie Gloucestershire Seconds, Nottinghamshire Seconds and Somerset.

The photograph at the beginning of the blog is Boxing Day Cup together we a good bottle of whisky to warm people up.

Next match is 3 January at St. Chads , Otley Road on the 3 January at 12.00 for charity . Please come along.

Swaledale dries up

posted by John Winn

Not for the first time I am indebted to my neighbour. Mrs June Sanderson, for providing me with source material for a posting. In 2012 she kindly loaned me memorabilia connected with the Hessay and District League, long gone the way of many small cricket leagues, which gave me some inspiration and just last week in researching her family history June came across details of a match played in August 1797 between Wetherby and Scruton.

The match was played at York Gate in Leeming Lane. York Gate appears on today's maps adjacent to the A1*, a little north of its junction with the A61. Wetherby were under the patronage of the Hon George Motson while Scruton relied on the support of a mere commoner, Mr Millburn. The purse for the match was a hundred guineas aside, an astonishing sum of money to be waged on a cricket match at that time. 'The match continued two days, and the contest (which was a severe one) terminated in favour of the Wetherby Club by several notches.' The use of the term 'notches' refers of course to the practice of recording scores by carving notches in a piece of wood. A far cry from Total Cricket Scorer. Cricinfo's brief history of cricket records the first use of 'scorecards' at Sevenoaks Vine in 1776.

A further trip to Darlington  has, I think, brought me to the end of the road in my research into the history of The Swaledale League for last week a morning spent going through back copies of The Darlington and Stockton Times for 1966 and 1967 has led me to conclude that the last matches in the league, which was founded in 1921, were played in July 1966. The league had begun the season with just seven clubs, an awkward number and five of the sides competing were 'works teams' from Darlington. The two village clubs were Barton II and Constable Burton. Barton who play today in The Darlington and District League, lies just south west of Darlington and can hardly considered part of Swaledale, and Constable Burton had for many years been stalwarts of The Wensleydale League, which geographically was their natural home. Here they are circa 1957, a year in which only Middleham kept them off the bottom of the league, Wensleydale that is.

Reports of the 1966 season cease in July but alas there is no final table. The difficulties presented by having seven teams had been solved when Darlington Corporation Transport dropped out in early July having conceded a number of fixtures. How one would love to say this was because of transport problems but the explanation lay in the shift patterns of employees making it difficult for them to raise an XI. There are no scores or fixtures recorded in 1967 so one can only assume that the matches played in late July 66 were the last. A further piece of evidence is that Constable Burton are back in Wensleydale action in 1967, this time only Gilling West denying them the wooden spoon.

Before I finally draw a line under this project there is one last source to explore and that is via phone numbers I have been given of two stalwarts of Barton CC who may, as very young men,  just have played in that 'final season'. Here's hoping.

*Known as The Great North Road at the time of the match.

Getting fixed up

posted by John Winn

What a pleasant surprise to switch on the laptop yesterday and find a well considered response to an emotive topic from a new blogger. Thank you Steve.

Even though for very good reason the publication of the next year's fixtures was delayed by 24 hours pcws have had the weekend to start planning next season's cricket watching. Yorkshire supporters may feel a little disappointed that the champions start with two away games, but New Road and Trent Bridge number among many people's favourite grounds and I suspect that hoteliers and guest house keepers in Worcester have already had  enquiries about vacancies for the week beginning April 12th. For those of the white rose persuasion who do not travel, then they must wait until the 26th when the Bears come to Headingley, an appetising prospect.

Even with my dual nationality and unless I am prepared to travel, I will need to exercise some patience, for like Yorkshire, Durham are not at home until the end of April when Sussex will be at The Riverside and their supporters will be huddled in the long room for warmth. This match of course clashes with Yorkshire's Headingley opener, the first of four such occasions when the two counties are at home at the same time, disappointing for there was only one such clash last year. Championship cricket at The Riverside is rather top and bottom loaded for after the visit of Notts in early May there are only three  games in 14 weeks  before things finish in a hurry with three out of the last four games at home beginning with Middlesex on August 21st.

Only one of my 'must see' matches is on the menu this season, Derbyshire v Lancashire, their first championship meeting since 2005 and lo and behold who should be the first visitors to the County Ground but Lancashire on Sunday April 19th, an early opportunity to tick this fixture off. And should circumstances prevent me making the journey the reverse fixture has the added bonus of being played at Southport, a ground I have never visited.

Plenty to get excited about then, and with just three weeks to go before the sun starts its return journey from the southern hemisphere it will not be too long before  'this season' means 2015. Roll on.