A successful pyramid built in Lancashire

 By Mike Latham

Firstly, thanks to Tony Hutton for his kind words in his previous blog.

One week on from the excitement of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium I was back in familiar surroundings, watching local league cricket.

I chose the Palace Shield Division 1A game between Standish and Carnforth, and on a lovely sunny day it was great to be among friends watching a good game played in excellent spirit.

Standish is a fast-growing village between Wigan and Chorley that has seen an amazing growth in housing developments in recent years. The cricket club surroundings, though, at the end of Green Lane have remained largely unchanged.

Standish Cricket Club sign welcoming visitors

I first got to know the people at Carnforth during my time as an official of the Northern League and have followed their fortunes ever since.

It got me thinking about my time with the Northern League and the changes that have taken place in the last ten years or so.

The Northern Cricket League, it’s fair to say, was reluctant to embrace change as the ECB encouraged premier leagues in each county to form feeder leagues and promote a pyramid system.

As an official of the League between 2008 and 2011 I could sense that several members of the executive were far-sighted and could see the way the wind was blowing, knowing that failure to comply could see the league lose its Premier League status.

Others were very conservative in their thinking. “We are the Northern League,” one told me. “We don’t merge with anyone.”

We had constructive talks with the Palace Shield competition during my tenure, but they never went past the discussion stage, even though the junior teams of Northern League clubs competed in the Palace Shield competition.

The match gets underway at Standish

The Palace Shield is a long-standing amateur cricket league, superbly administered, catering for a wide range of cricketing abilities and ages. Based around Preston and extending into much of the Fylde, it seemed an ideal partner. The Palace Shield currently has 46 clubs in membership.

Finally, in 2017 the two leagues got together and formed a pyramid system and five years on the results and benefits are there for all to see.

With a system of two up and two down between the two leagues and a promotion and relegation system throughout the Palace Shield, ambitious clubs can rise through the ranks. Clubs experiencing a fallow period can drop down a level and re-group.

The Northern League now has four traditional Palace Shield clubs in its ranks and three of them- Garstang, Longridge and Fulwood & Broughton- currently occupy three of the top five places in the table. Vernon Carus, promoted this year, are currently in 12^th and last place- but then that’s only to be expected that a newcomer takes time to find its feet.

In the Palace Shield Premier Division can be found Morecambe, Fleetwood and Preston, all founder members of the Northern League in 1952, together with Barrow.

Carnforth in the field at Standish

In Division 1A Carnforth, who voluntarily left the Northern League in 2012 are in their first season of the Palace Shield, having successfully regrouped and then dominated the Westmorland League.

Standish is another club that has been in a period of consolidation in the Palace Shield. In their case they chose to join the league after 25 years as members of the Bolton & District Association.

Standish batted first and reached 170 for 8 in their 45 overs. Batting was never easy on a green pitch that gave assistance to the bowlers, and this was reckoned to be a competitive total.

A keenly fought game at Green Lane

So, it proved as even Carnforth’s best bat, Chris Parry- who I once saw share a brilliant, unbeaten partnership of 260 with future Australian international Callum Ferguson while playing for Netherfield- struggled for fluency.

Another stalwart of Carnforth’s Northern League days, former first team captain Adam Hornby, made a battling half century and young Louis Rogerson a highly promising 30-odd, but Standish kept plugging away and the visitors fell seven runs short.

Reigning champions Blackpool currently lead the Northern League with Penrith and Vernon Carus occupying the bottom two places. Fleetwood have a 22-point lead at the top of the Palace Shield with Preston and Barrow both too close to the bottom for comfort. In the second tier Carnforth’s first defeat left them in second place with a trip to leaders Rufford in prospect next Saturday.

Though I’m something of an outsider, not involved in league cricket administration these days, the pyramid system seems to be working well and congratulations to those who had the foresight to make this happen.