A good day for Noel and Lenny at Barney

In my last posting I mentioned my use of The Teesdale Mercury archive for research into cricket in the Eggleston/Romaldkirk area of that dale and, as is often the case when looking for one thing one comes across another which diverts attention away from the original topic. The scorecard above is from the weekly paper in July 1926 and records a tied match between my father's old club, Haughton le Skerne, and Barnard Castle. More than 90 years on the two clubs are still in rude health with 'Barney' champions of the ECB Premier NYSD and Haughton champions of the Darlington and District League. Some distance apart in the pyramid today but between the wars friendly matches between the two were regular events. Few if any could have been as close as this. 

There is of course family interest in the card for me with my father N (Noel) Winn taking four wickets for Haughton who were captained by his oldest brother R(Roland) Winn. Sadly the card does not show the fall of wickets but it looks as though Haughton fell away after a decent start and that for Barnard Castle a good stand between their last pair brought them within one run of victory. It would be nice to think that my dad castled TP Hutchinson to bring about the tie. Nobody alive today to tell the full story of course but H(Horace) Marshall lived to be almost 100 and a nice touch is that I bumped into his son John, himself a former cricketer, just last week at an event in the village in connection with armistice commemoration. 

Family connections aside  some other names on the Haughton card are familiar to me and from a cricketing point of view the most memorable is that of L Alsop, Lenny as he was known was born near Richmond in 1905, so he was 21 at this time, and his family moved to Haughton in 1910. I am 'friends' on Facebook with two of his nieces. The late Bob Hattersley's history of Darlington CC records that Lenny went to play at Feethams in 1925 but this card shows he had not severed all connection with his village club a year later. He did go on to have a 67 year association with the town club scoring 726 A Division NYSD runs and 2046 in second XI cricket. He was President from 1981 to 1983. He does have one other claim to sporting fame for he played one match for Darlington FC, the mighty Quakers. On December 15th 1930 he sported the famous hoops at Peel Park Accrington in front of 1175 spectators, most of whom probably went home to enjoy their tea happy that Stanley had won 2/1. Both teams finished mid table but Nelson who finished bottom failed in their bid for re-election and were replaced by Chester.

This photograph can also be linked to the game featured on the card. The imposing figure holding the bat is Thomas Calow, village schoolmaster, and father of Roy who had a good day with three wickets and two catches. Roy died tragically young for having gone to Blackpool for the weekend when aged about 30 he contracted a throat infection and died shortly afterwards. He is buried with his mother and father in Darlington's West Cemetery. The smartly dressed scorer is my Uncle Roland, captain in 1926 and aged about 14 on this picture, the man on the grass is my grandfather, another John Winn. Not too far fetched to think that he and Mr Calow watched their sons play in this tied match.

Fixtures for county cricket in 2019 are to be published on Tuesday. Championship and One Day matches in the morning and T20 in the evening.. Having tweeted that my first point of interest would be the date of Yorkshire's fist championship match at Headingley on reflection I have amended that, in my mind at least, to the venues of championship matches which will not be played at HQ. Clifton Park,York is strongly fancied which would be tickety-boo for me. 

Cricket at Roundhay Park, Leeds.

Posted by Tony Hutton

The first cricket I ever saw was during the Second World War when my grandfather used to take me regularly to Roundhay Park, Leeds for Sunday afternoon charity games arranged by a well known Leeds business man - Jack Appleyard. He somehow managed to produce amazingly talented sides of not only local league players, but County and Test players too. Jack Appleyard's XI ran from 1941 to 1958 playing games for local charities not only on Sundays at Roundhay, but mid-week games as well at a variety of local club grounds in the Leeds area.

The Roundhay Oval is still regularly used for local league cricket and is situated in a natural bowl with huge grassy banks which were known to have accommodated crowds of over 100,000 for the famous Leeds Children's Days and military tattoos. Much earlier in it's existence, before World War One in fact, it had been suggested as the venue for F.A. Cup finals, but lost out to Crystal Palace some time before the building of Wembley Stadium.

One of the earliest games I can actually remember was the 1943 Leeds League's Hepworth Cup Final between Kirkstall Educational and Lofthouse. This was reported to have attracted a crowd of 22,000 which was believed to be the highest crowd for a league cricket match in this country beating the previous figure of 14,179 at the Bradford League's Priestley Cup Final of 1921 at Park Avenue, Bradford.

The reason I can still remember this game is that my uncle Geoff Stones, plus three of his brothers and a brother in law, was a member of the winning Kirkstall team. My proudest moment (as a six year old) came when he was fielding on the third man boundary and actually spoke to me as I followed him round the boundary edge.

The following year, 3rd September, 1944, saw probably the greatest assembly of cricketing talent to ever appear at Roundhay. This was the Hedley Verity memorial match following the wartime death of the great Yorkshire and England left arm spin bowler in Italy. Among the England greats were Wally Hammond, still captain of England after the war, Len Hutton, Herbert Sutcliffe, Maurice Leyland, Arthur Wood, Eddie Paynter and George Duckworth. The umpires were two Yorkshire legends, Wilfred Rhodes and Emmott Robinson. Sadly the game was abandoned when rain interrupted proceedings but not before Len Hutton had scored 82.

On the 21st July, 1946 a match was played in aid of Yorkshire veteran Wilf Barber's testimonial. Press reports suggest that there were 60,000 people present and a collection for Barber amounted to £400, a substantial amount in those days. Appleyard's XI captained by Wally Hammond took on Brian Sellars' XI in this match. 'Tiddly Push' as Barber was affectionately known was honoured to be part of a wonderful squad which read. Sellars, Barber, Hutton, Leyland, Wood, Smailes, Turner, Robinson, Beaumont, Watson, Coxon, Wardle and Halliday.

However, Appleyard's XI won the game with a brilliant display of hitting from Lancashire's Eddie Paynter, who scored 82, including six sixes and seven fours. This may have been the innings which perpetuated an urban myth that Paynter once hit a ball into the lake at Roundhay, which would have been a prodigious distance. I cannot remember who first told me this story, but it has never been verified. I have several times walked the route the ball must have taken and all I can surmise was that Paynter, a left hander, was batting at the Lake end and hooked the ball over fine leg. It must have then gone onto the wide footpath at the top right of the picture at the top of this article and rolled down the hill, alongside the then boathouse and slowly dropped into the very corner of the lake. That's my version for what it's worth.

The period after the end of the war often saw visiting county sides appearing during their Sundays off during three day Championship games, long before the advent of the Sunday League. One little known fact is that Brian Close actually played one match for Nottinghamshire at Rounday, when they were one man short, and Close who had just started playing for Yeadon in the Bradford League was quick to volunteer.

That same season, 1948, Mr Appleyard tried very hard to get the all conquering Australians to appear at Roundhay on the Sunday of the Headingley Test. For once he failed, but he might have drawn an even bigger crowd than the record ever attendance at Headingley. The Roundhay regulars had to make do with with a relatively low scoring game with Hammond's XI, when the great man made only five runs.

The last game I attended was in 1949, shortly before my family moved to the Midlands, when Jack Appleyard's XI played Dick Howarth's Worcestershire XI, which was the full Worcester county side plus another young Yorkshire Colt in Eric Fisk. Amazingly I still have the match programme, printed on very thin paper. Although rather fragile now, I can reproduce it below.

The star-studded home side was typical of the players who appeared regularly, with such well known county men as Eddie Paynter, Arthur Wood and Horace Fisher. The three great West Indians, Weekes, Worrell and Holt and the Australian Cec Pepper were the icing on the cake, performing as they did in those days in the Lancashire League. Weekes and Worrell would dominate proceedings at Test level the following season when the West Indies toured England, along with those two little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine.

Years later I managed to find the scores of this match, plus many others from the Yorkshire Post archive in Leeds Central Library. Worcester batted first and I remember the fair haired Yorkshireman George Dews, top scoring with 52. I later saw him playing league football for both Plymouth Argyle and Walsall. Worcester scored 232-8 declared, but Appleyard's XI with some assistance from the great Frank Worrell, who made a century in just over an hour, coasted to victory with 233-8. Not a bad afternoon's entertainment.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s things came full circle for me as my office side played home matches on the Roundhay Oval in the Bradford Business evening league against some very strong Building Society, Insurance Company and Banks sides, often reinforced by several 'ringers'. I was delighted to play on the sacred turf when most of my team mates had no idea of the history of the place.

In recent years the pavilion has been rebuilt with appropriate security screens to repel the threat of vandalism and it is good to see cricket continuing at this historic venue which brings back so many great memories.

More work to be done

posted by John Winn

In 2014 I posted this picture of a disused cricket pavilion and posed the question 'Who played here?' In very little time it was established that it had been the home of Eggleston CC, now defunct but members of The Darlington and District League from 1975 to 1998. Eggleston lies just north of The River Tees and the path shown on the photograph forms part of the Teesdale Way . Just a mile away is the village of Romaldkirk, south of the river and therefore historically part of the North Riding but since 1974 for administrative purposes at least considered part of County Durham.

My wife and I are frequent visitors to this part of the world, staying in Romaldkirk, where we found reference to a cricket team which had played under that name but with no indication as to where. For some time now I have been a member of a Facebook group 'Upper Teesdale Old Photos and Memorabilia' and last month I posted the photo of the pavilion on the group's page and invited members to comment. I was delighted to receive other thirty replies and it is on these that I have based this posting with particular thanks to Micheal Blenkinsopp, James Dykes, David Bainbridge and Carolyn Proud for their lengthy and helpful replies.

The ground was known as The Haughs and the area  still goes by that name. Michael played there briefly for Romaldkirk in the early sixties and recalls an annual festival game between Romaldkirk and Sir William Gray's XI. Sir William, owner of Gray's Shipping Yard in Hartlepool was at that time owner of the nearby Eggleston Hall. Michael describes how 'a big marquee would be erected on the field and lots of food and drink would be joyously consumed after the game.' Romaldkirk CC, like many village clubs, seems to have been a family affair for in the 1950s Michael's father John and his two brothers Geoff and Stan would play alongside maternal grandfather Wilf in the same team. Bainbridge is a very common name in the area and a distant relative of mine Jane Bainbridge was born in Mickleton in 1848 but ended up living in my home village near Darlington towards the end of the nineteenth century. 

Sir William was an MCC member and a keen cricketer himself. James Dykes, who confirmed that Eggleston CC did play league cricket between the dates mentioned, tells how an earlier club of the same name folded in 1959.  A pavilion built in 1930 used materials from the shipyard and The Teesdale Mercury, a weekly newspaper which still gives local cricket good coverage, reported on the opening of the pavilion by Lady Gray. At some point the club was restarted by permission of Sir William and the initiative of Bob Trotter.

David Bainbridge was a teenager in the late 40s and says 'I well remember the pavilion and many players at that time. To the front was an area fenced about twice the size of the pavilion where the team and spectators sat together while Hugh Adamson entered the score book and (I) occasionally helped him. Round the back was the very basic toilet for men, what the females did is questionable. Our umpire was Joe Moore senior who was the plumber on the Eggleston Estate. He could be relied on for a good result. His son Joe was a formidable fast bowler from a very short run. Other players were Stan Bainbridge, Herbert Tarn, both good with bat and ball. George Coates also. He was a tall strong man and I recall him with a rope over his shoulders pulling in the shafts with us youths pushing the heavy horse drawn roller. Among the young players were Clifford and Cecil Walton and Ken Black all top class players. Ken still lives locally.'

I spent time looking at the archive of The Mercury which has reference to cricket being played in the area as early as 1856 (thanks to Carolyn Proud for that) but feel that more work needs to be done on the history of both these clubs. I have promised to put the address for the blog on Facebook so that this posting can be more widely read, the group has some 1500 members and I hope that this might elicit further comments. 

Triple century - once in a lifetime.

Posted by Tony Hutton

During my long cricket watching career I have only seen one triple century. This was scored by the New Zealand Test batsman Ken Rutherford during the Scarborough cricket festival of 1986. As was then the custom the touring side played their last match of the season at Scarborough and for many years the opposition was a high class side of Test players forming H.D.G. Leveson-Gower's XI or T.N. Pearce's XI. The games were often given the label of a sixth Test Match.

Celebrity spectators at Scarborough - Norman Yardley, former Yorkshire and England captain and Ray Lindwall and Neil Harvey who were both members of the famous 1948 Australians.

By 1986 standards were not quite the same and D.B. Close's XI, led by the former Yorkshire captain who by then was into his mid-fifties, was somewhat below the quality of the immediate post-war period. However some critics have questioned the value of Rutherford's innings suggesting the opposition was a hotch potch of league cricketers and others past their best. This was not quite the case as Close's team contained no less than eight Test cricketers.

Brian Close and Bob Taylor lead the home side out.

Of the other three Franklyn Stephenson, although never picked to play Test cricket by the West Indies after going on a 'rebel' tour to South Africa, was an outstanding county cricketer, particularly during his time with Nottinghamshire when he became one of Wisden's five cricketers of the year and was the last player to achieve the double of a thousand runs and a hundred wickets in a season.
Although the other two had played first class cricket, they had only played league cricket in England.
Mark Harper from Guyana was the brother of West Indian Test player Roger Harper and Rod Estwick, a quick bowler from Barbados, who had been professional at Bradford Park Avenue and Todmorden, was the half brother of Sylvester Clarke of Surrey.

So not really a bad side and when you see that Rod Estwick dismissed opener Edgar for one, Martin Crowe for one and skipper Jeremy Coney for a duck, New Zealand were struggling somewhat at 113-4 before Rutherford, partnered by Evan Gray turned things round with a vengeance. The two of them put on a partnership of 319 with Rutherford very much the dominant partner. He was in fact the next man out scoring 317 from only 245 balls, which included forty five fours and eight sixes.  Gray made only a modest 88, but was happy to give Rutheford the strike at every opportunity.

Rutherford and Gray come out again after lunch.

New Zealand eventually declared on 519-7, made in only 94 overs, in reply to Close's XI's score of 257 all out, of which Boycott made 81 and Javed Miandad 41. The bowling figures were obviously nothing to write home about, Estwick the best with 3-95, but Stephenson only 1-90, Chris Old 0-46 from only eight overs, and Dilip Doshi, the Indian slow left armer 1-142. Doshi, who played county cricket with Warwickshire went for four sixes in one over.

A first for the Scarborough scoreboard - 300 up.

Close's side managed to salvage a draw by batting through the last day for a very comfortable total of 358-5, notably from the two Pakistanis - Sadiq Mohammed with 77 and Javed Miandad with 102 not out. Harper made 55 and Collis King, the West Indian, 48 before being run out by the much younger Miandad. Bob Taylor of Derbyshire and England kept wicket for Close's team but did not have a lot to do as very few balls went past the bat.

                                                        Ken Rutherford

For the record Rutherford's innings was the fifth fastest triple century of all time and the second fastest ever in England, bettered only by the Australian McCartney against Notts in 1921. It was also the highest ever innings at Scarborough, beating Jack Hobbs 266 in 1925.