Bradford League historian and local league ground-hopper Reg Nelson takes a look at three Yorkshire cricket clubs in Queensbury, Highbury and Dewsbury & Savile to trace their fortunes and ultimately, their demise.
We all know of cricket clubs that have folded across Yorkshire and grounds that aren’t used any more – at the same time, there is a demand for new places to play the game in Yorkshire and across the country.
This dip back in time is not about dwelling on misfortune but more about remembering club cricket history and those performances and grounds that once thrived.
Over to Reg…and if you want to contribute on social media afterwards, leave a comment below, tweet us at @cricketyorks or have your say on the Cricket Yorkshire Facebook page.
Queensbury CC (1903-1993)
We are seeing more and more local cricket clubs go to the wall with the ground disappearing off the cricket landscape. But, this sad state of events is not unique, and in 1993, Queensbury Cricket Club, who played at Granby Fields folded.
As founder members of the Bradford League, it was a major shock at the time, particularly as they had just failed by a whisker to obtain promotion to the First Division in their last ever season.
In retrospect, it was a huge mistake losing their independence in the mid-70s when they decided to merge with the rugby club, thus forming the Queensbury Sports Club.
Latterly, the rugby club members dominated the sports club committee, and in the end the cricket side was not strong enough to survive on its own two feet.
The end came when the cricket club’s destiny was taken out of their own hands by a committee who `billed’ them a debt they claimed they were not responsible for.
Club Secretary David Ryan informed the local press at the time, “The committee told us we could not appoint our own officials, and we were billed £2,400 for a sports and social debt we were not responsible for. Our very own destiny was taken out of our hands.”
The last Bradford League match at Queensbury ended with an emphatic ten-wicket victory over Ben Rhydding proving the club was in good shape player-wise. In later years, Granby Fields was vacated by the rugby club and the land is now occupied by a private estate of houses.
Queensbury did not have a distinguished history in the league and won no major honours. But they did have two Priestley Cup Final appearances in 1927 and 1951, losing on both occasions, and they won the Second Division title in 1955 and 1982.
There were good amateurs like Dilwyn Watkins, Glyn Rhodes, David Howes and Malcolm Leach who would all be `well paid’ cricketers today.
In 1982, they again captured the Second Division title, largely due to the magical qualities of their two overseas stars Ali Zia and Asad Rauf (later a Test umpire). They scored almost 2,000 runs between them and helped to pioneer the trend for overseas players in the league.
Haroon Rashid, who had almost started his Test career, set the Granby Fields alight several years earlier with some explosive batting. It is something of an irony that in their last season skipper Geoff Cowgill (formerly of Saltaire CC) assembled a team that very nearly gained promotion to the First Division, being pipped on the last Saturday by Baildon.
The team contained a good cross-section of journeyman cricketers and the one star performer to rival any other player in Queensbury’s past – Mansoor Rana. He followed the Queensbury-Pakistani connection and emulated Zia and Rauf in reaching the cherished target of a 1,000 runs in a season.
Cricketers in the Bradford League tended to dread the journey up the hill to Queensbury; being of two-sweater climes and the bearer of fabled talk of snow in July. But, Queensbury has been missed, if only for its character setting amongst the old property in the village and its familiar views of the church.
They fought a relentless battle against cynicism from their detractors, and apathy from the village, and deserved a much better fate then what befell them.
Another Queenbury Cricket Club was formed later following the amalgamation of former Bradford Mutual Sunday School league sides Yews Green CC and Union Croft CC. They now reside in the Halifax Cricket League playing their matches at their picturesque ground on Old Guy Road.
Highbury CC (1928-2004)
In the next decade, on 11 September 2004, Highbury Cricket Club played their last competitive match on their pocket-sized ground on the edge of Meanwood Park. It was a case of hard times coming with a rapidly dwindling membership.
Highbury Works Cricket Club was formed in 1928 by employees of Robert Jowitt and Sons Ltd, and in 1929 won the Leeds Second-Class League title.
Wishing to play against better opposition, Highbury joined the Yorkshire Central League and enjoyed significant success. They won the Championship five times between 1934 and 1945, and won the Rhodes Cup in 1943.
In 1946, Highbury joined the Leeds League, having first applied to do so in 1939. However, the club was only granted admission to the reserve section as a ‘shadow’ team to Leeds.
According to the Leeds League, “concern was expressed at the irregular shape and rather small size of the ground.” However, the “excellence of the playing surface” was, apparently a decisive factor in gaining admission to the League.
Under the captaincy of Ken Burnett, Highbury was undefeated in its first season in the Leeds League and won the championship. Full admission to the League was granted in 1947 and the club was able to field two sides.
The club had to wait nearly thirty years to win another team trophy. In the meantime, David Horsey of Highbury set a Leeds League batting record when he scored 190 not out in a first-team league match in 1965. The record stood for 25 years before being surpassed at Highbury by a visiting player.
However, the mid-1970s heralded the greatest chapter in the club’s history. In 1976 the club reached the final of the First XI knock-out competition, the Hepworth Cup, thanks to a brilliant century from Rodney Langstaff in the semi-final against Carlton.
Although they lost the final at Whitkirk to local Meanwood rivals Woodhouse, the team finished third in the First Division in both 1978 and 1979. In 1980, the club went one better finishing second to Colton – the club’s highest ever position in the League. That year, Jeff Horton led the overall league bowling averages, taking 41 wickets at 6.95.
Highbury CC remained very competitive in the Leeds & District League right up to the latter days, and won their last ever match vs Pledwick. The score read: Pledwick 222 (D. Fisher 77, S. Craven 42; S. Lonsdale 7-56), Highbury 223-8 (R. McGlashan 66, S. Lonsdale 64; D. Fisher 3-76).
EDITOR’S NOTE: I happened to stumble across the Highbury cricket ground on a walk from Meanwood a few years back. It was cordoned off by a metal barrier. For years, there has been a campaign to save the site from redevelopment and returned to the community.
For now, Highbury cricket ground stays empty, overgrown and quiet.
I believe there is a clause that means the land’s use must be for cricket but the owner has no obligation to do so. A legal stalemate continues as of April 2023; a bid by the land owner to remove that cricket-only clause has been unsuccessful.
Dewsbury & Savile CC
Now that the Bradford Park Avenue cricket ground has been partially redeveloped, the most famous lost ground in the county is surely the old Dewsbury and Savile ground which was located in Savile Town, Dewsbury.
As a club, Dewsbury & Savile CC had a phenomenal record in the early days of the Heavy Woollen Cup, reaching the Final in the first eight years of the competition: 1883-1890.
In all, they won the cup nine times in an incredible 21 Finals between 1883- 1926. The first time they actually won the Final was in 1887 when Henry Hill scored 139 helping his team amass 393 versus Spen Victoria.
This was the first century recorded in the Heavy Woollen Cup Final. The club took part in the Heavy Woollen League in the early part of the century winning it in 1910.
Later, in 1919, a famous Yorkshire player Edgar Oldroyd featured for them, recording 156* in one memorable match. Oldroyd, who was born in Batley, was a right-handed batsman, who played 383 games for his county.
He made a total of 15,925 runs at an average of 35.15, with 36 hundreds. He also took 203 catches. His right arm off-break and medium bowling took 42 wickets at an average of 39.47.
John Arlott, speaking in 1981, credited Edgar Oldroyd of Yorkshire with being ”the best sticky-wicket batsman in the world.”
In more modern times, the club found isolated success in the Central Yorkshire League, winning the top division title in 1955, and the senior cup in 1978. The fame of the club was magnified by its impressive pavilion that helped to host 53 First Class Yorkshire matches between 1867 and 1933.
However, the ground was abandoned in the 1990s after the club could not afford to renovate the classic pre-war pavilion to modern standards. The local council refused financial aid without a guarantee that the club, ground and adjoining football field could be used for the wider community.
As a small club, this was unrealistic to fund and the ground reverted to the council. The ground ceased to be a cricket ground and became a general recreation field and later the pavilion was demolished. A merger between Whitley Lower CC and Dewsbury & Savile CC created the newly named ‘Hopton Mills CC’ – who progressed to the Bradford Cricket League via the Central Yorkshire League.
By Reg Nelson (@regnels1)
Photo credit: The article’s headline image is from Brian Sanderson: June 1985, Highbury defeat Gildersome in the Sports Bag Trophy.
- St Chad’s Broomfield’s redemption story at this year’s Archer Cup - August 7, 2024
- Her Game Too: What can gender equality look like in club cricket? - July 16, 2024
- Home from home with Romany Cricket Club - July 8, 2024
Great article Reg
We have indeed managed to get an extension to the end of 2019 season but it will still be a battle to see it through with the electric cut off and the power station Greenkeepers been laid off. All part of the challenge of running and maintaining a village club I suppose.
We have not given up the fight of course. We will continue to press the new owners when they sign the deal with the power station, to carry on using the land if they have no immediate plans to redevelop it.
Otherwise we will look to try and find a friendly farmer with a spare corner of land nearby.
Regards
Lee Dowson
Chairman EPSCC
Thanks Lee – I enjoyed coming to your club a few years back and wish you all the best in continuing EPSCC.
Its not helping village cricket with the rules that forbid any youngster below 13 to play weekend league cricket.
Our 1st team has 3 players that played in our 2nd team aged 10,they batted number 11 and were protected by fielding in positions of safety.
The opposition were also aware of their fragility and responded with due care.
These 3 players are now aged 40, 36,and 35.
With these new rules we, as a village club, lose out, we don’t have the volume of youngsters to run a junior team and I fear for the future of village clubs and village cricket throughout the UK.
Thanks Fred – and you make a fair point. Guess there have to be rules overriding clubs and leagues but it does have some limits. It’s there for safety and the youngster’s enjoyment presumably.
As leagues we need to work together to form alliances to allow junior crickets 13+ to go on loan to other senior sides to play Saturday cricket with the focus on player development…..not titles or victories. There needs to be a shift change in ethos that means we all focus on development, be that coach, player, volunteer or administration. Success is no longer measured by victory for most clubs, but sustainability and survival year to year. As leagues, working together we should acknowledge that and drive the discussion, landscape and be judged on outcomes.
Collection of excellent points around sustainability vs short-term success. Like the idea of more flexibility around loan moves for younger players. As you say, needs co-operation but it is possible.
Sustainability and survival is certainly the goal for all clubs,but my point was to catch the enthusiastic 10 year old and get him or her playing cricket for their village before they discover other distractions on a saturday afternoon.
Ironically its mandatory for each club to have a child welfare officer,
I think was great to read – the Cricket History of a little piece of Yorkshire 🙂
although sad that Cricket Clubs and Yorkshire Cricket Clubs are disappearing – I thought it might me player availability and having to merge with other clubs cricket clubs again I thought.
I guess the Rugby Club were after the cricket club’s ground ?
It is 2019 after all and we all have massive choices now with our leisure time – and the younger you are – more so.
Keep encouraging the next generation is all I can say and keep the membership fees at a level that parents/guardians will not decide on another club – make it your club they choose.
More Girl’s in Schools are moving from Rounder’s to Cricket – helped in part to the National Womens Team doing well over number of years and even winning some hardware. Not sure we can do the same for the boys – for it is Rugby or Football isn’t it?
For the record I do support a club in North Yorkshire with a playing membership/donation each year since 2017. I ought to get up there and play for them, but I still play (and coach) in my home County – Surrey. 2019 perhaps it the year or rather weekend I get up there to play for them,
Can the men’s Team Win some Hardware at Lords this year and The Ashes?
have a Brilliant Season
and remember Cricket is the Greatest Game
Thanks for this, Reg. I have many memories of trips up to Queensbury from the 60s to the 80s. Played against Haroon, and Ali Zia and Asad. In fact, got Ali and Asad to play a few games for the friendly nomadic side I ran at the time – Halifax Nondescripts. (Not to be confused with Halifax Nomads – they always said we were working class Nomads!) They were lovely blokes. Cricket fanatics,
Thanks Bob…do Halifax Nondescripts still play? I’ve covered friendly, nomadic cricket from Bolton Abbey before (https://cricketyorkshire.com/hawkscricketclub/) and was at Manningham Mills to watch 1 in 12 play a Halifax-based side this Easter weekend.
I think I played for Rothwell at Highbury in their last season. It was an odd shaped ground and really hard to find but the facilities were ok. What was most odd though was that we finished a game with it having belted down most of the day. The wicket looked more like the Somme by the finish
Thanks for that Kevin! Good to get memories of playing from readers.
I was the last captain at Highbury the last few years of their existence and remember the final game as a sad time , many happy days of memories for so many people.
I played against the great Australian Test Cricket player there Dean Jones as well has his Australian team mate Tony Dodemade both were in the current Test team at the time.
The ground was certainly an unusual shape for a cricket pitch with it’s long straight boundaries but very small square boundaries with water running along the boundaries either side the ground was almost an island with water either side
A lack of playing numbers meant that the club was forced in to a sad demise that ended in the club closing it’s doors
Thanks for those memories Simon, it all adds to everyone’s understanding of some of these lost grounds. Extraordinary times when you’re playing Test players.
I was only aware of Highbury CC when I played a Bradford & District Evening League match there in the early eighties. John Breare’s CC hired their ground and I can’t remember how I got there for the regulatory 6.30 start from the other side of Bradford. Traffic less punishing in those days! Remember the odd shape of the ground, and also the wicket was not conducive for quick scoring, But, I’ve often looked back on that evening and thought I had experienced a unique ground.
I have the same thought about a ground in Somerset that was in our village. It was a leafy but fairly unassuming patch but at weekends for cricket, it came alive. Like Highbury, it’s still there and not built on but is overgrown and the club has long since folded.
Hello Simon,
How lovely to hear from the last captain of Highbury CC! I am one of the locals who are doing their best to try to save the site from development. Do you, or any other ex team members have any photos showing the crowds at any of your matches from 1993 to 2013 please? If so, they could be very useful in our claims for public rights of way around the old pitch.
Although I am not a cricket fan I loved to see a match in progress when I walked past. You cannot beat the sound of leather on willow.
All the best to you and all the other players, Diane Barnes.
Hi John / Reg
Rupert here from St George’s. I hope you are surviving lockdown. I treated myself to the new wisden which arrived yesterday. I played @Highbury in 1999 the last season of the old Leeds League. We lost however I do remember hitting a six. It just went over gulley. The shortest square boundaries anywhere but very long straight boundaries. I played 3 times against them @home for Olicanian where we won. I noticed their batsmen were quite adapt at hitting across the line trying to play the ball square. Habits picked up from playing at home. I even remember Rod Langstaffe then in the 2nds playing against us. We were both ex Abbey Grange boys but different vintages. My mate Tim who also plays for St George’s lives down there next to the old ground & when you come out onto Weetwood lane there is an excellent cafe called barecafe often frequented by well known sportsman including YJB.
I also played a few times at Dewsbury for Hunslet Nelson. A somewhat dour ground that came across as sad; maybe because it strongly conveyed the sense that its best days were long past & also because it was so huge. Very low scoring the grass always seemed to be long. In a 2nd team match there I once took 39 balls to get off the mark. Ouch. However we did win a crowther cup tie there one year & I even got 29! The old pavilion was huge but was clearly in danger of collapsing at any time. Exploring it as I once did in 1978 was not a wise decision in retrospect. Stay safe & let’s hope for cricket sometime soon.
Hi Rupert, thanks for those recollections, wonderful. Good to hear from you, I came across some photos I took of a St George’s game the other day.
I discovered Highbury on a walk from Meanwood and its nature-reclaimed pavilion unexpectedly caught my eye on the twists of a path.
Look forward to seeing your club in action at some point again, best wishes, John.
Hi John – I remember going to watch a game at Highbury in the early 1990s – stumbled across it! It was a very small ground – during lockdown I have been on many different walks, so tried to locate it today – but couldn’t find it – think my memory must be playing tricks on me! Is the pavilion still there?
Cheers Andy
Hi Andy, I found it myself a few years back on a walk. You can get there on foot from behind the Waitrose at Meanwood. Access is via Highbury Lane on Google Maps and I think you skirt round allotments, Highbury Pond and it’s there en route to Meanwood Park. There were efforts to build a nursing home on the site and when I was last there, the pavilion was visible (just) but reclaimed by nature.
Thx for the kind words John. It’s a discussion we have been having on Facebook on lost grounds. I’ve done quite well at grounds that no longer exist. For example 50’s @ Brook Motors in Fartown, Kings Cross (Halifax), Huddersfield ICI & my career best @the old Rothwell CC. Is the ground still being used? Then 48 @ Chickenley 30 odd at Roundhay tho have scored a 50 at Ollies v Roundhay, 50 against Highbury at Denton Rd, and a 50 v Thornhill @ the old Low Road ground of Hunslet. Also scored 38 & 32 in my two appearances at Pool Mills (& I live in the village).. Kings Cross went suddenly. ICI’s ground might still be used. My first ever 50 in April 1978 almost 42 years ago to the day was there. Is Reg doing any more articles on the lost grounds. Somewhere I have the CYL year book for 1982 & almost half the clubs have gone. Ive just remember WYCO Wakefield & of course Wakefield which is now an all weather hockey pitch & part car park.
My next comments will be on the lost old Leeds league grounds (before my time) but I have a Hunslet 2nd team scorebook from about 1961 or 62 which is a real treasure trove.
Thanks Rupert…..you’ve certainly done well on grounds that sadly are no more. Might share some of these on social media and see what the response is.
Will drop you an email about the Leeds League.
Playing at Highbury you’d always have men on the mid wicket and cover boundaries from the start, a well timed forward defensive shot could often result in a four.
Like others I remember the Langstaff brothers were particularly dangerous batters on that track
Thanks for that….I’ve played on a few grounds like that (St Chads springs to mind in an evening game) where it feels like you’re almost under the batsman’s nose but on the boundary!
Great article and interesting discussions. I played for Gildersome in the match shown in the header photo; Greg Handley is preparing to face the bowling and it could be me at the non-striker’s end, although I always imagined myself to be slimmer….
I always enjoyed the trip to Highbury; a very atmospheric ground; as a spectator you were literally part of the action, as a fielder, it made my “handbag” throwing arm feel adequate and as opponents, they were competitive but always sporting.
It’s good to read Simon’s comments and I particularly remember playing against the brothers, Langstaff and Harvey, Glen Cox, Simon Rosenthal Jeff Horton, Brian Bollingbroke and Ian Rowlands
The team photograph looks as though it was taken at Kirkstall Educational; mid sixties at a guess with Jim Moulton at the front, (padded up with sleeves rolled up). Jim was later Grossman for the club.
Thanks for the comment John, I’ve really enjoyed the input from past players, clubs and spectators on this article.
I first played for Dewsbury & Savile 2nd team in 1958 at the age of 10 – away at Birstall. I batted at 11 and remember that due to runs scored by my partner my box ended up on my knee. I ended up playing for Dewsbury through under 18’s, 2nd team and eventually the 1st team. My playing career was ended in the mid 80’s by a ruptured Achilles. In my time I played against a number of ex- Yorkshire players and a couple of times against Sonny Ramadhin who played for Wakefield at the time. For the record I did not score against him. They were great times – I thoroughly enjoyed playing for Dewsbury & S. In my opinion starting boys and girls at a young age is vital to the progression of this wonderful sport.
Thanks for sharing Alan, some wonderful memories.
Thanks for sharing those nenories Alan. Playing against Sonny must have been something.