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.