Marooned amid acre upon acre of flat, fertile crop fields, almost a mile from the eponymous village, Burton Salmon Cricket Club is splendidly isolated. Located next to Burton Common Lane, a dead end, single-track and at this time of year cow parsley-fringed byway, which eventually peters out at a farm, the Burton Salmon ground is […]
Pontefract & District Cricket League
Bullcroft Main Cricket Club face prospect of final weeks
Bullcroft Main Cricket Club are on a countdown clock. It’s not exaggerating to say that they could well be in their final weeks with an urgent call for players seen as a final throw of the dice. The one-team club in the Pontefract & District Cricket League have been given a two-week extension (Saturday 22 […]
Aire-Wharfe League: Rodley and Follifoot await vote nervously
In the Aire-Wharfe Cricket League, there is an annual vote by all member clubs, revealed at their AGM, as to whether to retain the two lowest ranked clubs – or eject them. For 2024, the two clubs at risk of being without a cricket league to join for 2025 are Rodley and Follifoot. It is […]
Going for the title: State of play in Yorkshire’s leagues
My interview with Richmondshire Cricket Club who wrapped up the NYSD with plenty of time to spare got me thinking. What’s the situation in the top divisions elsewhere? I keep an eye out across Yorkshire’s cricket leagues but now we’re getting to the last few weeks, there are trophies there for the taking. So here […]
Nostell St Oswald: The curious case of sun stopped play
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 […]
Midweek cricket at Nostell St Oswald
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 […]
Pontefract & District League: Down to the wire at Feverley Hills
Two days before my trip to Thornton Dale, I had been in the markedly different surroundings of Featherstone, a former pit village synonymous with – and renowned for – rugby league. They used to say, if you were after a decent scrum-half, all you had to do was whistle down the shaft of one of […]
Village Cup: Yorkshire’s regional finalists confirmed
Yorkshire’s regional finalists of the Voneus National Village Cup are confirmed as Frickley Colliery, Addingham and Folkton & Flixton. Round 5 of the competition is on 23 June with the start of the national rounds. Frickley Colliery defeated Streethouse by 7 runs to win West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire & Humberside – Group 5. Their reward […]
Wildflower meadows and special branches at Hundhill Hall
A season or two ago, whilst exchanging emails with a very helpful Pontefract & District League secretary, I asked if he could recommend any particularly attractive and/or interesting cricket grounds in his competition. Hundhill Hall Cricket Club’s ground, off Sandygate Lane, in the farming village of East Hardwick, three miles south of central Pontefract, made […]
St Chad’s Broomfield Cricket Club: New Beginnings
One of Cricket Yorkshire’s most popular articles this year was on switching cricket leagues. Its inspiration was my local club, Bingley Congs, who have swapped the Craven Cricket League for the Aire-Wharfe Cricket League. What I didn’t know was that a club was voted out of the league to make space; namely St Chad’s Broomfield […]