Changes in the north west

posted by John Winn


In a posting I made in September 'Practically Oldham' I described an outing made by six pcws to visit grounds in the Saddleworth League on the last day of its existence and while I have on a number of occasions made references to the changes which will affect league cricket in Yorkshire next season less has been said about what is going on next door. As far back as June the Saddleworth league website announced that it would be merging with the Central Lancashire League to form a new league to be known as The Pennine League. The new league will comprise 13 teams from the CLL and 11 from Saddleworth.

Four clubs from the Saddleworth League writes The Saddleworth Independent will join the new Greater Manchester Cricket League, details of which are now available on its website. What the GMCL calls 'fixture groups' for next season are listed. Clubs in the Premier League are Bury, Clifton, Denton St Lawrence, Denton West, Edgeworth, Egerton, Flixton, Glossop, Greenmount, Heywood, Prestwich and Unsworth. The four clubs from Saddleworth have been placed in Div 2: they are Droylesden, South West Manchester, Whalley Range and Wythenshawe. Full details available at gmcl-2016.co.uk

Finally the sad announcement of the death of Tom Graveney a couple of weeks ago means a change in the list of England's oldest surviving test captains. Donald Carr of course remains at number 1 but TWG's place at two has been taken by Raymond Illingworth. I recall seeing Graveney playing for England at Headingley in 1968 against Australia, the one occasion on which he captained his country but I was only present on the first day when stubborn batting from Redpath and Ian Chappell kept England in the field so denying me the chance to see Graveney bat in test cricket. The day is perhaps best remembered for Fletcher's 'noble attempts' at first slip while there were some in the crowd who felt that Phil Sharp might have done a better job.