The sports ground ‘collector’ is always on the lookout for something different. Playing inside a racecourse circuit – as do Thirsk Cricket Club – counts as unusual. Not unique, though, in my experience. Two decades ago, I watched Racing Club Warwick in a Southern Football League match at a ground enclosed by the town’s racecourse. […]
Cricket Grounds
Sutton-on-Hull Cricket Club throw 150th birthday party at Netherhall
Birthday parties are fun – and the one I attended at Sutton-on-Hull Cricket Club was no exception. Sutton, founded in 1872, mark their 150th anniversary this season. A high point of the celebrations was a visit, to the Netherhall ground, in Bransholme, by an MCC XI. The sun shone all day, the cricket was very […]
Hemsworth Miners Welfare claim T20 Title at Streethouse
On three days of the recent four-day heatwave, I was lucky enough to watch cricket. Had there been any shade available to the spectating hoi polloi, at the County Ground, Derby, I might well have secured a full house. I don’t usually see so much cricket in such a short time but I’m starting to […]
Want to buy your own cricket ground? Well, one’s for sale in Haworth
Do you like the idea of owning your own cricket ground? Well, now you can, if you’re quick. The former home of Haworth West End Cricket Club, high above the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire is for sale – by informal tender. The deadline for sealed bids to Dacre, Son & Hartley Keighley is […]
NYSD Hundred: Sea fret and sixes for Whitby versus Guisborough
There is a lot to like about Whitby. Maybe too much! The town hit the headlines recently when, in a local referendum, residents voted in favour of measures aimed at cutting the number of homes used for holiday accommodation. About 28 per cent of properties in Whitby are second homes. Families say they are being […]
Halifax Cricket League: Luddenden Foot vs Old Town
A trip to Luddenden Foot for the Halifax Cricket’s League Parish Cup was an eventful one. The drive takes you up into the clouds of the Upper Calder Valley, along narrow stretches until you plop out on Sowerby Lane. We parked up just as a tractor wanted to squeeze past the row of parked cars […]
Viking Cup: Jake Weatherald stars for Barnsley Woolley Miners
For which club did Dickie Bird OBE, Sir Geoffrey Boycott and Sir Michael Parkinson play? Surely, everybody – even me – knows the answer. Barnsley Cricket Club. After visiting Shaw Lane Sports Club, to watch a Viking Cup quarter-final against York, I know quite a bit more about the Barnsley club. The eventful history of […]
Summer solstice cricket derby at Allerton Bywater
June 21: the summer solstice, midsummer’s eve, not a hint of rain. What to do? Stonehenge is a long drive, I cannot count any Druids amongst my circle of acquaintance, blood sacrifices are terribly messy (and likely to be illegal), and I am probably rather too near 60 for stripping naked and making love beneath […]
Priestley Cup: Fizzing sixes and spectator catches at Keighley
Despite it saying ‘Keighley’ on my birth certificate, I have only a tenuous connection with the town. My folks, from Sheffield, relocated to Keighley in the early Sixties when Dad was offered a post in its NatWest branch. The babes-in-arms Gallons (I have a twin sister) came along in 1965. By 1970, however, the family […]
Easingwold make Hunters Cup Semi-Finals
After a Saturday drive up to County Durham, to watch a game in the North East Premier Cricket League First Division, at the splendid Philadelphia Cricket Club, overlooked by the Penshaw Monument, I fancied something closer to home the following afternoon. Forecasters indicating a continuation of the summer’s indifferent weather – cloudy and breezy albeit […]