FREEZING SECOND DAY AT HEADINGLY.

By Brian Sanderson,

Looking at to-day,s Daily Telegraph under Andrew Collomosse report on Yorkshire first day.It stated that the lowest score by Yorkshire was 111 but this was only at Headingley.In the match Albert Walter Hilton took 7 for 47 bowling his left-arm medium pacers.He only played four seasons for Sussex which the Yorkshire  match was his first-class career best. After he left Sussex he played two seasons in the Lancashire League at Burnley.The photograph above is of Burnleys ground at Turf Moor next to the football ground. However the lowest score by Yorkshire against Sussex  in Yorkshire was 61 at Dewsbury in 1891 and 42 at Hove in 1922.

To-day weather was freezing so I decided to watch the match in the Long Room behind glass. The batting highlight of the day was the partnership between Ed Joyce and Ben Brown both scoring over 90 runs.After lunch Brooks took four wickets to boost his confidence.Sussex been bowled out for 356 and Yorkshire hoping that the weather helps them.Lees was out before the umpires took them off when the rain started to fall. Good to see John Winn back from his break in the Lake District.

Yorkshire Academy are playing Barnard Castle School on Sunday if you want a ride out with the weather forecast sunny.

Interesting visitors

posted by John Winn

I can now confirm that York CC will play Didsbury at Clifton Park this weekend.

Firstly in a T20 match starting at 5:00pm on Friday then

 on Saturday at 12:30 in a 45 over game.

They will also play Pudsey St Lawrence on Sunday, again at Clifton Park, with a 12;30 start.

If these tempt you to visit York at the weekend then you might also consider looking in at Raskelf CC who will entertain Vale of Leven CC on both Saturday and Sunday. Details of start times are not known. Vale of Leven play in the Western District Cricket League and their ground is Lesser Milburn Park, Alexandria in West Dunbartonshire.


Raskelf play in the Nidderdale League on Saturdays and in the Pilmoor Evening League. The post code for their ground is YO61 3LG. It is about 20 minutes drive from Clifton Park

FIRST DAY OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP

By Brian Sanderson,

On a beautiful April day I walked through the gates of Headingley for the first Championship match.Good news as I reached the Long Room William Roberts ,the bookseller,was offering his stock at half price.Purchased some photographs of Yorkshire players.

Brian Workman and his son had come up from Sheffield to watch the match.We moved out side to sit in the sunshine and the person we sat near was Alan Studdard. I saw Alan last at Pudsey were he was speaking about Lancashire League.The sun was very nice along with the company.At lunch Yorkshire had struggled to 40 for 4 and the first  boundary coming after seventy minutes.

After lunch I strolle  back from home .Yorkshire soon closed their  innings at 96 in 46.2 overs.Not a good start to the season but at tea-time I  went round to the bookstall.Vivian and Geoff were just finishing selling  the books to help Yorkshire cricket.They do a exellent job with very little help.

After tea the sunshine left and a cold wind got up.Went inside to sit with Ron Deaton to watch the cricket in the warmth.Nash, the opening bat,scored 80 and looked in good form.Bad light took the players off at 5.30 with Sussex 104 for 3 with Sidebottom taking all three wickets.

The photograph above is of Hove when I went to watch them three years ago.Worth a visit to the ground as you can watch the cricket in a deckchair and is near the sea..

For P.C.W. St Georges are playing Selby on Saturday in Harewood Park.Good place to watch cricket.

MY SISTER BIRTHDAY PRESENT

By Brian Sanderson,

This is a photograph from the new pavilion at Headingley looking towards Emley Moor.You can pay extra this season to see this view.

Yesterday was my sisters birthday so I invited her across to Headingley with the sunshining.Yorkshire were still batting as as we came through the gates Lees had scored his maiden first-class century.As we setting down to be entertained we were joined my Jerry,our Middlesex supporter.He was going down to London on the coach at mid-night. Good luck to him.As we walked home for lunch Lees was out and Gale came in to bat.

Returning after lunch Yorshire had declared and I  had a chance to speak to Peter Dibb about the coming season.Outside Andy from York had wintered well but complained about the lack of Rugby League during the coming winter.Further down the East Stand Brian Senior was wrapped up for the cold and heard that the New Rover match had been cancelled  so I had to stop at Headingley for a bit longer. Plunkett and Patterson were picking up easy wickets on the pitch.

Met John Fuller from the Cricket Yorkshire web-site who had been up with us at West Yorkshire Archives last week .He is now the press officer for Leeds and Bradford University so the web-site is worth watching.

I was able to watch Jack Brookes take a excellent catch before I had to take my sister to the Ripon bus.However Leeds Rugby were playing at 6.45 across the ground so a early tea weas required.
As the Rugby followers will now Leeds won a good match against Warrington.

One minus for the day was that I could not purchase a scorecard in the afternoon as the ticket office was shut maybe to get away from people complaining about not getting their season tickets.Hope to go on Wednesday if my ticket has arrived.

Suddenly it's summer

posted by John Winn

You wait 174 days to see some cricket and then the next day you're almost spoilt for choice and to make things even better, after a long spell of cold easterly winds, it felt noticeably warmer than the day before.

I began my day with the short trip to Knaresborough Forest Cricket Club and their attractive Union Ground, situated behind the Union pub on Thistle Hill from the garden of which there are good views of the cricket. The occasion was  a friendly with Pontefract League outfit Knottingley CC, promoted to Division Two for 2013. Knaresborough Forest were founded in 1949 and were the dominant side in the Nidderdale League in the sixties and seventies, winning 16 championships in 27 seasons. Last season saw them occupy a mid table spot in Division Two. Next Sunday they will make the short journey to Easingwold for a preliminary round match in the National Club KO .Practice needed before then and considering the ground was under snow less than a fortnight ago it looked a treat in yesterday's sunshine as the home side batted first.

One of the Knaresborough opening bowlers showed early season rustiness with a mixture of high wides and wide highs in his first two overs  for which he profusely apologised before being rested.  Knottingley  made a steady enough start and did not lose a wicket during the half hour I watched. I took the opportunity to have a word with the groundsman who was fielding on the boundary and congratulated him on the transformation he had managed in little over a week.

I had intended to make my next stop at New Rover but unlike at  Knaresborough Forest, heavier snow had made it impossible to get the ground ready and they had cancelled the two friendlies arranged for this weekend. They are however hopeful of playing the two games fixed for next Saturday and Sunday and their website confirms that the Aire Wharf league will begin on Saturday April 20th, as planned.

On to Headingley arriving just in time to see Yorkshire begin their second innings after a slightly delayed lunch. As predicted the students had had a torrid time with the bat and had been bowled out for 118, a deficit of 123 to which Lees and Lyth steadily added throughout the afternoon's play. The second day crowd was noticeably smaller than Friday's but even more noticeable was that nearly all were sitting in the sunshine which was evident throughout most of the afternoon. The better prepared were applying their factor 30, thought to be a record north of the Trent for April.  The students fielded keenly but the Yorkshire openers were in little trouble and today Gale declared at 289 for 2 and the universities fared only a trifle better this afternoon being dismissed for 121 in the second innings. Plunkett with 6 for 33 staked  his claim for a place in Wednesday's XI to face Sussex . With Brooks capturing 3 wickets in the Leeds/Bradford first innings both the close season recruits will feel they have made a good start.

I left Headingley at tea and caught the commentary on the Grand National: the horse I held in the pub sweep resumes its employment with Steptoe and Son tomorrow. It was just a couple of minutes diversion on my route home to call again at KFCC to find  a small crowd had assembled soaking up the rays and some soaking up pints from the bar. Knottingley had managed 227 for 4 off 40 overs and Knaresborough were 50 for 2 off 18 in reply, a little behind the clock. I have not been able to find the result today but note KFCC have another 'warm up' next Saturday when they will visit Headingley CC with a 2:00 start. Another game of possible interest to pcws on Saturday is between York CC and Didsbury from Manchester. Alas the York website does not say whether it is at home or away. I have emailed the York Secretary for clarification and will post his response here before Saturday. Didsbury are members of the ECB Cheshire County Premier League and would be attractive visitors to Clifton Park. They finished eighth (out of twelve) last season.

Finally an announcement from the Central Yorkshire League that the  'week one' fixtures which have been postponed en bloc will now be played on May 11th with the cup ties arranged for that day put back twenty four hours to Sunday May 12th.

Snow at Hove but sunny Headingley.

posted by John Winn

My local radio station this morning announced that Durham and Yorkshire had warm up matches today ready for the start of the new season next week. Despite an admonitory tweet from this blogger they repeated the mistake in the next bulletin. Today is the start of the first class cricket season with six counties taking on MCCU sides. Warm ups they may be, although that is just about the last thing they are if you take into account today's temperatures, but rightly or wrongly, and most people I know think wrongly, they have first class status and thus mark the start of the season. BBC Tees take note.

A hundred and seventy two days older than when I lost saw any cricket I travelled to Headingley not too worried whether the games were first class or not and in plenty of time to see Leeds/Bradford MCCU take the field well protected against the cold and in front of a decent gathering of the faithful, some hardy enough to sit outside the warmth of the long room. Amongst those who had gathered were many  familiar faces who seemed to have wintered well. Some were even kind enough to say they had enjoyed the winter postings on the blog. There were one or two surprises in store for us; the doubling of the price of scorecards, the unavailability of year books, sold out but more in stock tomorrow but no bigger shock than to find after about twenty minutes of the new season had elapsed Yorkshire had gone from 9 for 0 to 10 for 4 and it looked as though we might get the chance to see the two new signings, Plunkett and Brooks, in action both with bat and possibly ball before lunch.

Bairstow and Ballance mounted a modest recovery but another collapse brought Sidebottom to the wicket at 65 for 7. As on several occasions last season, however Ryan showed how his batting, if not his hairstyle, has improved, and with Ballance he added 156 for the 8th wicket .Ballance was then well supported by Brooks and with extras showing good early season form, the ninth wicket did not fall until 244, as did the tenth.

In the five matches that started today, there was no play at Hove due to rain and snow, the county sides batted first, perhaps this is protocol but in most cases the students appear to have acquitted  themselves quite well for even at Durham where new parent Ben Stokes hit a hundred, the county side had been in trouble at 40 for 3. One suspects that the universities will not find batting easy. The season has started with some cricket grounds under snow, piles of it by the road in some places and with overnight frosts the norm, a bizarre set of conditions and I didn't hear anybody today recall seeing  anything quite like it. Tomorrow presents an opportunity to see some club friendlies and after a call at Knaresborough Forest I will probably go on to New Rover where Wakefiled Thornes provide the opposition.

lost grounds

posted by John Winn

The fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Beeching Report last week was not an opportunity the BBC was likely to pass up and at least three times on one day I saw some nostalgic footage with voice overs by Cliff Michelmore and shots of John Betjeman on various, now long defunct, country railway stations. It put me in mind of the lyrics of a delightful Flanders and Swann song, Slow Train which includes reference to several stations which fell under Beeching's axe. The song's opening line is 'Miller's Dale for Tideswell', a station particularly evocative in the Winn household for it was where my wife caught the train that took her to secondary school in Buxton.The station closed in 1967 and the pupils were taken the eight mile journey by bus. but the buildings survive and the track bed is part of the Monsal Dale long distance path that uses the former Midland Railway route.

Not all the 31 stations listed by Flanders and Swann were closed, ten survive to this day and fortunately for pcws one of the survivors is Chester le Street which will disgorge many passengers when an Ashes test is played at The Riverside for the first time in August. Where CleS was spared others with delightful and romantic names like Mow Cop and Scholar Green, Tumby Woodside and Trouble House Halt are no more. Researching nineteenth century cricket, in particular the archive of 'The Ripon and Richmond Chronicle' has produced many references to places where cricket was played 150 and more years ago but like the station at  Cockermouth for Buttermere the grounds have been put to alternative uses.

Many of the 'lost grounds' were country house grounds at places like Baldersby Park (near Thirsk), Old Sleningford Hall (close to West Tanfield), Grimston Park ( a mile south of Tadcaster) and Maunby Hall (near the confluence of the Swale and Wiske rivers). They sound like lovely places to play or watch cricket. There is an account of York travelling to play against Grimston Park arriving at Ulleskelf Staion in 1868 where they were met by Lord Londonderry's 'four in hand' for the two mile journey to the ground. When Londonderry (Catterick) played Leeming CC in 1859 at Newton House Park, luncheon was provided by the Duchess Dowager of Cleveland who was loudly cheered when she arrived to watch the match in her donkey cart. Must have been a decent lunch.

Not all the reports I have read describe games in country estate parks or have references to nobility. A more down to earth encounter took place in 1868 at the Victoria Grounds near Boroughbridge Station between the 'Woodyard Men' and the 'Brickyard Men' of Messrs JW and W Green with the spoils going to the Brickyard. Another match that intrigued me was that between High Coniscliffe, just out of Darlington on the Barnard Castle road and where I have found no other record of cricket being played, against Drapers' Assistants, who cutting their coats according to their cloth ran out winners.

To access these events I have used micro film records which provide by no means a complete record. Some years are missing altogether, some are incomplete and the cricket reporting is far from systematic but some of the descriptions of matches are delightful. Such a game was that between New Marske and Upleatham in July 1868 where the wickets were 'pitched in a  cart track and the ball behaved in a most capricious and tantalising manner, making obtuse, right and acute angles'. Scores were low.

Finally thanks to Brian for posting April's fixtures .In Friday's posting  I made reference to a picture of Knaresborough Forest's ground covered in many parts by snow last week but passing by on Friday afternoon I saw the groundsman cutting the square so things are looking up but disappointingly, yet understandably the Central Yorkshire League has postponed all its first week's fixtures, scheduled for April 13th, to allow more time for ground preparation.