As you would expect of a cricket club established as long ago as 1815, Knaresborough have a storied history. Topping the remarkable achievements of the 1970s will take some doing. In an unparalleled run of success, featuring numerous league and cup triumphs, Knaresborough dominated the Airedale & Wharfedale Senior League.
There is a lot happening at Hensall Cricket Club, as I discovered when visiting their Bird Lane ground to watch a preliminary round tie in the 2025 Voneus National Village Cup. Hensall, who this season will play at tier four – Division One Ebor – of Yorkshire Premier League North (YPLN), gave
I’ve done quite a few more cricket-watching miles – inside and outside Yorkshire – than my 2024 Miles Per Gallon reports suggest. Nice to reflect, briefly, on visits to 11 Yorkshire grounds which, for one reason or another, didn’t receive a ‘full’ write-up.' One sultry June evening,
Having earmarked a fixture with ‘meaning’ for each team, the final Saturday of my 2024 season found me at Clayton Cricket Club, west of – and high above – central Bradford. Clayton were hosting Halifax League rivals Upper Hopton; a crunch instalment – “huge”, according to Clayton’s social media – in the Division
Shortly before the start of the season, I had a look through MCC’s 2024 fixture list. Each year, ‘Egg and Bacon’ representative teams visit clubs, of all sizes, across Britain, to take part in celebration matches, often held in midweek. Sure enough, on Thursday, August 22, MCC were scheduled
England’s strolling mercenaries on the telly? Or live midweek cricket on a gloriously sunny June evening? No contest, really. Off to Nostell St Oswald Cricket Club I went. There aren’t that many Tuesday evening cricket options in Yorkshire, but the Pontefract & District League’s two-division Evening
You would expect, come mid-August, sixth against seventh, in a 12-team competition, to be a dead rubber. Not in the 2024 Yorkshire Premier League North’s second tier! The league’s new Premier Division Two, to launch next year, will comprise teams placed second to sixth from this
August promises to be an eventful time at Conisbrough Cricket Club. On the month’s opening Saturday, I dropped by the club’s St Peter’s Drive ground to watch an absorbing third-versus-first Yorkshire Cricket Southern Premier League clash with Division One promotion rivals Oughtibridge War Memorial, who
I am a big fan of club cricket leagues’ internal cup competitions. Come the second half of the season, when many league games are becoming dead rubbers, they offer meaningful fixtures. I do like a bit of jeopardy. Better still, most of these cup matches take place on Sundays, providing
I’ve certainly struck gold with my T20 cricket spectating this season. Augmenting a list of exciting finishes, a second midweek excursion, in 24 hours, to the scenic Wolds, this time to Wetwang Cricket Club, was rewarded with a last-ball finish. Some controversy. With the scores tied, and the
Lurking on my ‘groundhopping’ bucket list for years, a visit to the sublime, sleepy setting of Thixendale Cricket Club lived up to – nay, exceeded – expectations. Put simply, it was a slice of sporting serendipity: when each piece of the jigsaw slotted neatly into place. The weather, in what is proving
If you don’t like the weather in Britain, wait an hour. There’s a lot of truth in the saying, usually trotted out by knowing locals to overseas holidaymakers. I was reminded of it recently when, a mere 45 minutes before the scheduled start of a Thursday evening fixture
Two days before my trip to Thornton Dale, I had been in the markedly different surroundings of Featherstone, a former pit village synonymous with – and renowned for – rugby league. They used to say, if you were after a decent scrum-half, all you had to do was whistle down the
Penistone Cricket Club’s Queen Street ground could look very different when the 2025 Yorkshire Cricket Southern Premier League season gets underway. The club, whose First XI play – and are going great guns – in Division Two, the league’s fourth tier, hope next spring to unveil a state-of-the-
It is going to be impossible to write about a visit to Denby Cricket Club, one of many smashing grounds in the Huddersfield League, without mentioning Chris Holliday. So, I’ll do it straightaway (right off the bat, as it were). In 2020, which will go down in cricket history
In Ilkley, there is no escaping the presence of the eponymous moor, subject of Yorkshire’s unofficial anthem – and it dominates the Ilkley Cricket Club ground. Its gaunt, at times austerely blank, mass rises impressively and inexorably to the south. As the afternoon sun swings round, highlighting the moor’s
