Editor’s note: This is a refreshed article – with updated content for 2017 but based on a past version that audiences won’t have read on this current website. This is a remarkable story about how the digital landscape of Twitter has provided cricket clubs across the UK with the means to help each other. For those of […]
Club cricket
Hodgy: watercolour-painting, ukulele-playing Yorkshire groundsman
The phone chimes up just at the moment that I am making a conscious effort to burn dinner. It’s groundsman David Hodgson – universally known in cricketing circles as ‘Hodgy’ – who has returned my call around an interview after a day at a turf management exhibition in Harrogate. Discarding carbon-infused chicken in favour of […]
Yorkshire cricket outdoors in January: St Chads Charity Cup
The fielder stationed at short third man wore a red woolly hat while the umpire live-scored the match from his tablet. Welcome to cricket outdoors in mid-January. This charity fixture, in aid of the Sue Ryder Wheatfields hospice, who provide end-of-life care for patients with any life-limiting illnesses including cancer, was held at St Chads […]
Cricket Yorkshire’s winter reading shortlist
The countdown to Christmas is well underway in the Cricket Yorkshire office. Caramel-infused mince pies have bitten the dust and thoughts turn to the choice of cricket reading out there to look forward to. Whether autobiographical journey, historical retrospective or light-hearted page-turner, the publishing houses have a raft of titles lined up to tempt you […]
The life of the Yorkshire Academy cricketer with Richard Damms
Richard Damms, Yorkshire County Cricket Club’s Academy & Development Coach, is juggling a phone interview with Cricket Yorkshire while doing the Christmas shopping in Barnsley. It’s an opportunity, as he circumnavigates the mayhem around Black Friday, to reflect on the Academy’s debut in the inaugural season of ECB Yorkshire Premier League North. The Academy is […]
Have cricket clubs recovered from last winter’s flooding?
There is nothing more likely to chill the blood of those involved at cricket clubs than the imminent threat of flooding. The devastation caused by the floods of 2015 is still being felt today. As Storm Angus battered the country this week with severe gales and heavy rain, there was the reminder that this could […]
Meet the man at the ECB tasked with reviving grassroots cricket
Even before my debut question to Matt Dwyer, Director of Participation & Growth at the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), there is a surprise. He asks me what I think about the recreational game in Yorkshire. It’s pleasantly unusual. This from the ECB, the governing body who so irk cricket fans and are routinely […]
Going in to bat for Yorkshire visually impaired cricket
What must it be like to play cricket if you’re visually impaired? It was a thought preoccupying me on the walk up to the Indoor Cricket Centre at Yorkshire County Cricket Club to watch a taster session run by Yorkshire VICC. I’ve written about VI cricket before with Cricket Yorkshire but it has been a […]
Sicklinghall: What do you do when your cricket club is burnt to the ground?
Sicklinghall Cricket Club is reeling with shock after a fire, believed to have started before midnight last Saturday, has completely destroyed all of their buildings. Absolutely nothing is left. The clubhouse, scorebox and equipment shed along with memorabilia and machinery are all gone with North Yorkshire Police and Fire Services unable to prevent the blaze claiming everything. This proud club has […]
Arthington’s tradition of October cricket lives on
As if to prove that cricket is very much alive and kicking in this part of Yorkshire, as I got out of the car at Arthington Cricket Club last Sunday, a straight six thudded the ball into the grass behind me. It was a spectacular afternoon in this slice of Wharfedale, north of Leeds, proving […]