Andrew Gallon learns about club development, junior ambitions and more at Calverley St Wilfrid’s who welcomed Saltaire in the Aire-Wharfe Cricket League’s Waddilove Cup. My latest search for cricket at a setting in line with COVID guidance took me to Leeds City Council-owned Victoria Park, Calverley. It is a smashing facility, popular with village residents, […]
#Cricket Grounds
Girlington race to victory over Yorkshire Friends at Hirst Lane
This Bradford Mutual Sunday School Cricket League encounter saw Yorkshire Friends host Girlington at Hirst Wood, on the outskirts of Saltaire. It’s an area I know very well having played a few seasons at Shipley Providence, a stone’s throw away on the other side of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Today, ‘Prov’ didn’t have a […]
A thousand wickets: 45 years of Sheffield league cricket
Richard Wells looks back at 45 years of league cricket in Sheffield and beyond. Cricket has been in my life from my earliest memories, on the beach at Filey with Grandad or in Hollinsend Park with brothers, cousins and school pals. We had old kit from Intake Methodist CC and it was expected we would […]
What’s it like playing club cricket in public parks?
Aden Biddle talks to Norton Woodseats about life as a cricket club who play in a public park. During the depths of winter in lockdown, it was possible to believe that summer would just never come. Rest assured it will and one sight that will be familiar is cricket being played in one of Yorkshire’s […]
Can a cricket club survive just on cricket anymore?
Bill Marshall asks: can a cricket club survive these days merely by being a cricket club? Probably not, which is why Craven Cricket League club Hepworth & Idle have started and are continuing to spread their wings in different directions. They realise that to stand still is to go backwards and want to become an […]
Exploring club cricket grounds: Hopping mad
Andrew Gallon reflects on his journeys across Yorkshire club cricket as an avid ‘groundhopper.’ From the best views, finest cricket teas and strangest geography, dozens of clubs feature in his round-up: The arcane practice of groundhopping – watching matches at as many different grounds as possible – is fairly well known in football. There are […]
Cricket grounds: How has it been for club cricket during lockdown?
I recently caught up with Kirkstall Educational Cricket Club’s groundsman of many years, David Hodgson, to get a feel for what life has been like at cricket grounds. Coronavirus has prevented club cricket across the country and seen us indoors for months. As an earlier Cricket Yorkshire feature showed, groundsmen like Hodgy have continued to […]
How did Yorkshire’s cricket grounds look for the first weekend of the season?
The weekend of 18-19 April 2020 was meant to be the starting blocks for a glorious summer of club cricket. Due to the suspension of all recreational sport and coronavirus lockdown, cricket grounds across the country instead lie dormant and empty. I thought the work that groundsmen and cricket clubs put into their facilities and […]
Floods and flower power at Bridgeholme Cricket Club
As I write this, the November rain is peppering the windows of the Cricket Yorkshire office. A journey into town for supplies had meant I returned home resembling a deep-sea diver who’d just returned to the surface. It’s a funny time of year. There’s a smattering of indoor cricket leagues starting up and pockets of […]
York & District Senior Cricket League: Cows and calm at Pannal
Pannal Cricket Club, of the York Senior Cricket League, has been on my wishlist for some time. I’ve scooted past on the train from Leeds to Knaresborough many times and one August afternoon, following a trip to Knaresborough Forest CC earlier in the day, I thought I’d give it a go. It is always a […]