The Skipton Community Sports Hub is a welcome new addition at Sandylands. The £1m new facility will be home to Skipton Cricket Club, Skipton Juniors FC and Skipton Ladies AFC, as well as being available for community use – as a bar and for venue hire. Malcolm Birks, chair of the Skipton Community Sports Hub, […]
Aire Wharfe Cricket League
Aire-Wharfe: Fitting finale at Addingham Cricket Club
A return to Addingham Cricket Club was long overdue; I came close in the National Village Cup until the game with Scottish side, Falkland, was won by the hosts by walkover due to a clash with cup competitions. Beyond Silsden, there’s a pleasing panorama that opens up as Bolton Road affords a long speedy straight […]
Beckwithshaw win promotion to the Aire-Wharfe Premier Division
Looking back to September 2022, Beckwithshaw faced probably their fiercest local rivals, knowing that they had to win to retain their top-flight status. Ultimately, the visitors to The Stag Den, Bilton, dominated the game, relegating Beckwithshaw’s first team to Division Two. I was sitting on the boundary rope that day, covering what had been another […]
Rules vs common sense: Leafblowers and seeing the light
If there’s one thing that club cricket excels at, it’s rules, regulations and calculations, occasionally to its detriment. This is about light, leaf blowers and common sense. Seeing the light It’s not just the recreational game that can sometimes stray into a soap opera. Anyone who watched the third Test match at The Oval where […]
Winners revealed in the Cricket Yorkshire Tea of the Year 2024
The Cricket Yorkshire Tea of the Year for 2024, sponsored by Yorkshire Tea, has been a blast to run again. We have shaken things up with new categories to reflect the cost of cricket teas as well as the diversity in diets, culture and food here in Yorkshire. The standard has been phenomenal again. The […]
Beckwithshaw 2nd XI recover from 24-5 to defeat Bardsey
It’s come to that time of the season where the number of games scheduled in a week is dropping considerably. Leagues and cups are reaching their climax and others have finished, making the fixture list something of a tricky thing to navigate. Combine that with who is playing at home, who is away, which teams […]
Chappell Cup: Starfish among the shadows as Ilkley make semi-finals
Unfortunately, on Sunday, I wasn’t able to schedule in a women’s game due to having to head towards Burley in Wharfedale to pick my daughter up from a weekend’s Guide camp. To be honest, I had pretty much resigned myself to not being able to get to any sort of game as the location and […]
Bilton pay King’s ransom in Roundhay Park
Having not been for years, the prospect of a return to Roundhay Park was an appealing one. The rough plan was to take in some of North Leeds’ Aire-Wharfe League Division One game with Bilton and perhaps a dip over to watch Leeds Gladiators of the Dales Council League at the Roundhay Oval. The first […]
Ilkley Cricket Club host Saltaire in Waddilove Cup
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 dots and dashes, first-time visitors will […]
Birtwhistle Cup: Rain-soaked thriller at Beckwithshaw
When Prometheus decided to use lamb’s wool to give us mere mortals a sign that Zeus was sending rain our way [and in doing so, invented clouds], I’m not sure he was trying to depress cricket players and fans alike. However, as Wednesday turned into Thursday and Prometheus threw quite a lot of wool up […]