Yesterday's blog on this year's Boxing Day match in Leeds set me off again as to whether anybody else had ever taken a hat trick in England on Boxing Day. Barry Singleton of North Leeds CC performed this feat yesterday and it will no doubt take some considerable research by the Northern Cricket Society cognoscenti as to whether anyone else has ever done it.
Barry Singleton of North Leeds CC
I can shed some light on what might be the very first Boxing Day hat trick, which goes back as far as 1955. I recently obtained, in a second hand book shop, a copy of a book entitled 'Village Cricket' by A.J. Forrest. To my surprise the whole of the first chapter of this most interesting volume concerned the Northern Cricket Society Boxing Day game in 1955, in which the author actually played. This chapter has the intriguing title 'The hat trick nobody noticed'.
He had been invited to play as a guest by the founder of the Society, Ron Yeomans, who was aware that Mr Forrest was touring the country writing about village cricket.
Ron Yeomans is described as one of the world's most ardent cricket enthusiasts, being the founder, honorary secretary and guiding spirit of the Northern Cricket Society which then had a membership of six hundred people.
To cut a very long story short, the match, which was then played at Alwoodley cricket club in Leeds, was interrupted by rain. NCS with such luminaries as J.R. Burnett and Brian Stott of Yorkshire together with Peter Rochford the Gloucester wicketkeeper made a total of 82-8. The Northern were captained by Johnny Lawrence, the Yorkshire born leg spinner who played for many years with Somerset and became a Boxing Day regular over a very long period of time. He might well be in the frame as another hat trick contender. The long rain delay between innings eventually ended and Lawrence enquired 'Who hasn't batted?', 'Yeomans' was the immediate retort.
So it was that Ron Yeomans opened the bowling with spinners which had not seen the light of day in recent times. He did however manage to take two wickets in the over, one with the very last ball. With all the comings and goings of batsmen, this fact had been forgotten by the time Yeoman's second over started and he immediately clean bowled the batsman with a full toss. The incoming batsman was promptly out lbw next ball. One more for the hat trick everyone said, unaware, as was the bowler, that he had already achieved the feat. The next man middled the ball and everyone thought the hat trick had gone.
Rain finally ended the proceedings with a score of 21-5 and about fifty players, friends and supporters retired to the Wharfedale Inn, Arthington for a buffet celebration lunch.
Speeches were made and a good time was had by all. The author, Mr Forrest, was entertained that evening by the Alwoodley Chairman, George Featherstone, whose wife had apparently served three hundred cups of coffee during the match! The Trophy the teams played for yesterday is still the George Featherstone trophy.
At around 8 p.m. the phone rang and it was none other than the aforementioned Ron Yeomans, with the excited news that the Press Association had just checked the score sheets of the game and had discovered his hat trick! So to end this story I can do no better than to quote the author's words at the end of this very long chapter.
'Such triumphs of hope snatch some harshness out of winter. They do not just refresh us, but set our fingers tingling in anticipation of joys to come, next season's fixtures. May they go on and on, amid snow and ice, a symbol of cricket's indestructibility as the loveliest and most challenging of games.' I am certain he would be glad to know the tradition continues to this day - more than sixty years later and that another hat trick has been recorded.
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