Cricket Grounds

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Despite a lifelong sweet tooth, I’m not overly keen on rhubarb.  In common with gooseberries (unfortunately, the only edible thing that grew in our South Pennine childhood garden), its bitterness makes me shudder. Adding custard helps. Rhubarb – vegetable not fruit – was on my mind as, courtesy of a courtesy car, I trundled, west, […]

The long innings of my 2011 vintage Volkswagen Polo is over.  With 146,222 miles (note the Double Nelson element!) on the clock, the reliable old campaigner expired last week – albeit only a month before I’d planned to scrap it.  No way, without major expense, would it get through a mid-July full service and MOT. […]