For many of you cricketers, February signals a changing in the seasons just as surely as entering a different time zone: back to nets (BTN). Preparation for this ritual will depend on whether you spend winter oiling your cricket bat with affection or open your cricket bag, after months of fermentation, with a hazmat suit […]
Scarborough Cricket Festival: Have you any tales for my new book?
The Scarborough Cricket Festival is an integral part of the cricketing calendar here in Yorkshire. Did you know that county cricket on the North Yorkshire coast has been an annual treat since 1876 when MCC played Yorkshire in a nine-day programme? From the very first time of taking the train over and stepping out into […]
Don’t miss these Yorkshire cricket matches in 2018
If you’ve clicked through and are reading this, maybe you are someone for whom adventure knows no limits; an intrepid explorer who thirsts for left-field Yorkshire cricket suggestions. Well, as it happens, you’ve come to the right place. This is not about Pakistan Test match at Emerald Headingley, the Roses T20 or the ECB Premier […]
Who would be your Christmas guests from any era of cricket?
The Christmas turkey is in the oven, the pigs in blankets are tucked up, there is not a sprout in sight (author’s licence) and enough roast potatoes to feed an entire cricket club. All you need are your guests…but in this utopian, sprout-free world, who would you choose to invite from the world of cricket, […]
Mark & Charlie’s Story: Opening Up Cricket
December 14th, 2012, is seared into the memory of Mark Boyns (left) who learnt his friend Alex Miller had taken his own life. Alex and Mark were close friends who played cricket together at Sefton Park Cricket Club in the Liverpool & District Cricket Competition. They also shared a common affliction: depression. As Mark describes […]
Following On: Like Father, like Son?
James Buttler’s latest book, Following On – In the Footsteps of Cricketing Fathers, delves into the dynamic surrounding the father and son relationship in cricket. All of us, for whom county cricket is part of our DNA, can conjure paternal combinations who have played the game professionally. In Yorkshire, Bairstow and Sidebottom are two surnames that […]
Albert Pagan: Tutoring Michael Gough and triggering Desmond Haynes
Albert Pagan, 88, well known in the North Yorkshire & South Durham Cricket League (NYSD) cricket circles, is reflecting on national umpiring recognition: “I’ve been very lucky to be selected to represent all of my colleagues. The effort they’ve put into setting standards in the North Yorkshire South Durham League…the players have done remarkably well […]
Jekyll and Hyde: Life as Nidderdale Cricket League Secretary
It comes to something when stalwarts as invested in recreational cricket as Graham Hyde decide to call it a day. We are less than a minute into a roving conversation about the health of Yorkshire club cricket and the outgoing Honorary Secretary of the Theakston Nidderdale Cricket League puffs out his cheeks. In relief or […]
Retiring from club cricket: Hanging up the bowling boots
I’ll be honest. I never thought this day would come. The decision to fold up the whites for the final time and decommission the knackered, muddy cricket spikes was neither impulsive nor thrust upon me. Yet, after 31 years of playing cricket, it is the right moment to flick off the bails and call time […]
Leeds Caribbean: Life in the Dales Council Cricket League
Rocking up at Leeds Caribbean Cricket Club for their last Dales Council match of 2017 was an exercise in crossing digits and glancing anxiously at the lashing rain pinging off the bonnet of the car. This Division A contest at Scott Hall Road against Bradford Moor looked doomed from the outset as cricketers and officials […]