Cricket Grounds

Yorkshire’s cricket clubs are no strangers to the slings and arrows of outrageous weather. But as I hunker down and roll my eyes at the temperature reaching -11°C in Bingley, thoughts turn to volunteers. In my neck of the woods, Bradford & Bingley Cricket Club (who are well versed in dealing with massive and regular […]

Come on a journey around Yorkshire’s club cricket grounds with my latest book, Dales, Bails and Cricket Club Tales. Available on Kindle and in paperback via Amazon, these are the dramas, landscapes and matches from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, with my travels around the region to clubs, grounds and games of all standards. The […]

A rough count of grassroots cricket games I’ve been to this season, seems to come out at around 65. That is a personal best for a single season in the last decade, and I must admit for the vast majority of visits, it has been a real pleasure. As October arrives, I wanted to sit […]

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 […]

I’ve done quite a few more cricket-watching miles – inside and outside Yorkshire – than my 2024 Miles Per Gallon reports suggest. Nice to reflect, briefly, on visits to 11 Yorkshire grounds which, for one reason or another, didn’t receive a ‘full’ write-up.’ One sultry June evening, I was very pleased finally to see cricket […]

Having earmarked a fixture with ‘meaning’ for each team, the final Saturday of my 2024 season found me at Clayton Cricket Club, west of – and high above – central Bradford. Clayton were hosting Halifax League rivals Upper Hopton; a crunch instalment – “huge”, according to Clayton’s social media – in the Division One (i.e. […]

This is the extraordinary case of the club cricket match that was abandoned because of the sun. That it happened in Yorkshire after what has been, by all accounts, a fairly lamentably cold and wet summer, is doubly surprising. Nostell St Oswald 1st XI were at home to West Bretton 1st XI in the Premier […]

England’s strolling mercenaries on the telly? Or live midweek cricket on a gloriously sunny June evening? No contest, really. Off to Nostell St Oswald Cricket Club I went. There aren’t that many Tuesday evening cricket options in Yorkshire, but the Pontefract & District League’s two-division Evening League has Tuesday as its match night. The hideous […]

You would expect, come mid-August, sixth against seventh, in a 12-team competition, to be a dead rubber. Not in the 2024 Yorkshire Premier League North’s second tier! The league’s new Premier Division Two, to launch next year, will comprise teams placed second to sixth from this season’s Championship East and Championship West. The two 2024 […]

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 […]