Just when I thought I’d been to the Yorkshire cricket ground with the finest view (insert your own favourite here), I happened upon Green Moor Cricket Club’s Hill Top Lane. When I arrived, shortly before an August heat haze obscured the eastern horizon, I could see the cooling towers of Drax power station – something […]
Miles Per Gallon
One weekend, short games: Kirkheaton & Upper Haugh excel
One weekend, two short games. Cricket’s unpredictable nature ranks highly amongst the sport’s many appeals, but it is very frustrating for the spectator when what looks, on paper, like being a tight contest turns out, on grass, to be nothing of the sort. So it was, on the last weekend of July, when a Saturday […]
This, is my England: Evening league cricket at Burton Agnes
It is probably fair to say Burton Agnes, an East Riding village set amid the rolling Wolds, is better known for its Elizabethan manor house than for its cricket club. As it happens, manor house and cricket ground, sites separated by the narrow Rudston Road, are barely a couple of hundred yards apart – and […]
Scenery and sportmanship in the evening shadows at Kildale
Some cricket grounds you drive past, and think: “One day, I must watch a game there.” Thirty-odd years ago, I was domiciled in Great Ayton (on reflection, I’m not sure I’ve lived anywhere nicer), and hiked regularly on and around the North Yorkshire Moors. Many journeys to walk starting points took me along the Easby […]
Meltham Cricket Club: Sixes in the land of the green dragon
Hunkered down beneath the Dark Peak’s Wessenden Moor, cradled within a near-circle of a Holme Valley tributary’s gritstone hills, Meltham must count amongst Yorkshire’s most attractively sited small towns. A Thursday evening Huddersfield Premier League T20 Shield Knockout quarter-final, against local and Championship division rivals Slaithwaite, tempted me into making only a second visit to […]
YPLN Hundred: Bridlington and Brandesburton shine
Always keen to increase my ‘grounds visited’ total, I leapt at the chance to watch two matches – at different venues – on the same day. The Yorkshire Premier League North’s 2025 Hundred first round provided an opportunity, on a Sunday, to take in Premier League Two Bridlington hosting Championship East Scarborough (10.30) followed by […]
Wolds apart as Hull Strikers win the Battle of Walkington
For the second time in five days, I found myself watching cricket on the fringes of the rippling Wolds, surely Yorkshire’s most underrated landscape. A quarter-final of the Yorkshire Premier League North’s Dave Conner Memorial Trophy, between teams placed second and first in Division Two Holderness, held sufficient eastern promise to tempt me back along […]
Welton win by a Furlong to top YPLN Championship East
Although cricket is a team game, individual performances frequently take the eye. An important Yorkshire Premier League North fixture, at Welton & Brough Sports Club, between Championship East promotion contenders Welton (second) and Pickering (first), featured two stellar solo contributions. Welton’s 104-run victory, in a contest whose outcome hung in the balance for much longer […]
T20: Sixes at altitude as Cumberworth United progress
On the hottest day of the year – albeit a temperature almost certain to be bettered several times in the coming weeks – I was desperate for a breeze. Heading for height seemed a sensible option for Thursday evening cricket, so I went to Cumberworth United’s Cumberworth Lane ground, which stands at 719 feet. There […]
Where does Yorkshire (and its club cricket) begin and end?
Geographically, where does Yorkshire (and its club cricket) begin and end? Plenty would say Saddleworth is still very much part of the Broad Acres, despite it being more than 50 years since this most scenic of upland districts, a West Riding outlier, was absorbed by the Greater Manchester behemoth. Yorkshire Ridings The Yorkshire Society sums […]