They don't write cricket reports like this any more

Posted by Tony Hutton

Having recently become a client of the British Newspaper Archive, I need to acknowledge that the following article from the Yorkshire Post on 1st August 1949, which may still be copyright of the Yorkshire Post and the author Derrick Boothroyd, is reproduced from their archive.

However, I feel it is worth risking prosecution, by the fact that this is such a well written and fascinating account of the first day's play in the Roses match at Headingley. All the more so as I was there as an eleven year old schoolboy.

The article is headed 'In the crowd at Headingley - Weary cricket spectators' by Derrick Bothroyd.

Yorkshire copied the railwaymen in their match against Lancashire at Headingley on Saturday and went slow. Occasionally they went one better and stopped altogether. Five hours' batting produced 211 runs - 42 an hour.

The crowd of 16,000 clapped slowly, cheered ironically and swore they would never go again. Perhaps they had not realised that it was the centenary of these Roses duels. To ask Yorkshire, or for that matter Lancashire, to score at more than 40 an hour on such an occasion would have been asking them to ignore a grand tradition. It would have been like asking the organist to play ragtime at the Harvest Festival.

That's Hutton - that was
The day started tragically. Before we had got our score cards from the little man with the white hair a dejected Hutton was walking back to the pavilion, run out from the third ball. Gloom struck the Yorkshire ranks. There was not a single small boy to clap him on the back as he walked up the gangway and only the Lancastrians to applaud. They enjoyed it immensely, of course. One of them was so excited that he lost his return ticket to Manchester and its discovery later had to be announced over the loud-speakers.

 But Lowson and Halliday came gallantly to the rescue and it was half past two before another wicket fell. it was a grand partnership between sharply contrasting personalities -  the serious Lowson, who always looks ashamed of himself whether he has scored a duck or a hundred, and the happy Halliday, who can smile broadly at a bowler when he spreadeagles his wickets with his score at 96.

Crosswords and cross words
It was the afternoon that dragged interminably. The only time Wilson swung his bat was when he was practising at the bowler's end, and Halliday did not even do that. He merely leaned on it and thought about the Theory of Relativity or something.

The women did their crosswords and discussed Princess Elizabeth's dresses and the men argued fiercely about who should be dropped from the Yorkshire team. Only Hutton, apparently, was worth his place - and even he will have to do something in the second innings.

The tea interval arrived without anyone noticing that the players had left the field, and then, at 4.20, a boy reading a detective story looked up and said. 'Somethings happening, Dad.' It was. It was raining. So 12,000 people got up gratefully and went home.

24 runs a day
It stopped about five o'clock, and we martyrs who were left gathered in front of the pavilion to inform the umpires and players that they could start again. But we had to wait until twenty five to six before they made a reluctant reappearance. 'Why haven't you all gone home?' they seemed to say.

Watson came in a five to six and showed his annoyance at being disturbed by getting two in the final half hour. 'He's scoring at the rate of 24 a day,' a statistician announced. 'He should just reach his 50 before close of play on Tuesday.'

And so we homeward plodded our weary way. And the funny thing about it is that we shall all be there again today. These English.


How does that compare with the bland quotes from captain and coach which summarise a day's play in the papers of today? Answers on a postcard, but mind your language!