Village Cup defeat but lease, grants and facilities boost at Hensall

There is a lot happening at Hensall Cricket Club, as I discovered when visiting their Bird Lane ground to watch a preliminary round tie in the 2025 Voneus National Village Cup.

Hensall, who this season will play at tier four – Division One Ebor – of Yorkshire Premier League North (YPLN), gave Group Three (North Yorkshire, North) opponents South Holderness a few anxious moments before going down, fighting, by 56 runs.

Put in, Hedon-based South Holderness, in 2025 a tier three – Championship East – YPLN club, scored 262-7 from their 40 overs before restricting Hensall to 206-5, also from 40 overs. More about a compelling, see-saw contest later in this piece.

The following day (April 14), work began on a £37,000 extension to Hensall’s pavilion, located in the southeast corner of Bird Lane, a lovingly maintained cricket arena, the club’s home for about half-a-century.

Expected to take up to six weeks, the revamp features provision of changing, shower and toilet facilities for female cricketers (a notable growth area for the Hensall club), and enlargement of a function room well beyond its present 50-person capacity.

North Yorkshire Sport, the Harrogate-based charity, awarded Hensall a £20,000 grant towards the cost. Also, Hensall have applied to Sport England for a £14,000 grant, of which half must be match-funded. 

Thanks chiefly to the generous sponsorship of local businesses, the names of which are now appearing on advertising boards at the ground, that £7,000 match-funding target has almost been reached.

A few weeks ago, Hensall secured a £2,000 grant from Banks Group, a community-minded, Durham-based firm concerned with homebuilding, coal mining, plant hire and renewables. This paid for the materials required to erect a gated fence between the Bird Lane ground’s car park and outfield. Hensall club volunteers did the work.

Huge credit must be given to farmer Chris Platt, who is Hensall Cricket Club’s amenable landlord and immediate neighbour. At the club’s request, Chris, whose son, Henry, has just moved up to Hensall’s Under-11 team, recently agreed to offer a new, 25-year lease, once again at a peppercorn rent. The new lease is valid until 2049.

Club secretary (and first team opening bat) Rich Whaley, now in his 27th year of involvement with Hensall, established in 1932, said: “Previously, we’d always had shorter-term leases, but we asked for more this time because of funding opportunities.”

“When we applied for grants, because we had such a small lease, we wouldn’t get substantial grants for facilities enhancements. We asked Chris [for a longer lease], and he didn’t have a problem with it.”

Better yet, for the first time, the lease makes the cricket club custodians of the entire Bird Lane site, which in addition to the car park encompasses, directly to the north, a pitch used by the York League’s Hensall Hawks Football Club.

“The lease is perfect for the cricket club,” said Rich. “It gives us that security of knowing that we’ve got control of the site, and that we can look after it and maintain it. 

“Also, it gives us that security of knowing, if we spend some money on the site, it’s not going to get taken away – not that it would. We have a guarantee, now, for 25 years.”

The need for female changing facilities at Bird Lane had becoming pressing. Chloe Thornton, daughter of club treasurer (and Rich’s fellow first team opening bat) Chris Thornton, keeps wicket for Hensall’s second team and, last season, was obliged to arrive for home games, wearing her whites and ready to play.

Several other girls play alongside Chloe in Hensall’s Under-15 team. With the male changing rooms off-limits, an alternative was required.

Rich acknowledges as “vitally important” the addition of girls and women to Hensall’s cricketing portfolio.

“The world’s a changing place. We need to accommodate anyone and give anyone an opportunity that wants to have an opportunity [to play cricket].”

Hensall’s Under-Nines are coached by Rich. “We’ve got three girls, and they’re fantastic at cricket. The way they’re developing is brilliant to see. 

“Chloe, in her Under-15s, has two other friends that she plays with, and another that sometimes comes out as well. We’re halfway to a girls’ team. There is just a bit of an age gap. We need some more in the middle.”

Hensall regard a larger function room in the pavilion as ideal for building links with the community and creating a fresh source of income.

Already, a Snaith-based women’s darts team – most of whose members live at Hensall – have signed up, from this coming September, to play their Wednesday evening matches in the soon-to-be transformed pavilion.

Hensall’s two pubs, the Anchor and the Railway Tavern, have now closed, affording the cricket club an opportunity to become the village’s social fulcrum.

“We’ve been holding social events – quiz nights, bingo nights, even a Caribbean night – at the club for two or three years. By extending the pavilion, we will be able to get more people into our social events. It’s a big way to generate funds to support the club.

“No-one in Hensall has anywhere to socialise. The plan [with the pavilion extension] is to provide somewhere for villagers to be able to come, to watch cricket, to have a drink, to socialise and to hold events – anything they want. Whatever they’re into.”

Hensall Cricket Club began running Allstars training sessions last year. Designed for children aged five to eight, they proved an instant hit.

“We weren’t sure, but we had a go, and 20 kids turned up,” Rich recalls. “From there, Chris [Thornton] and I started the Under-Nines, which now has 18 or 19 players, with another four starting after Easter. We’re going to have to have two teams!”

Emboldened by that success, for 2025, Hensall are launching Dynamos training sessions – more advanced than Allstars – for boys and girls aged eight to 11. “It will move the Allstars on to that next level. A lot of them are ready for it.”

Chris and Chloe Thornton recently staged, for girls, a Dynamos session at Kellington Primary, a school close to Hensall.

“It went really well. Feedback was very positive. The girls and their parents were really impressed. Quite a few of the girls have signed up for our Dynamos.”

The Hensall club run four senior and four junior teams, the latter Under-Nines, Under-11s, Under-13s and Under-15s; circa 75 registered juniors in total. The pay-off for putting so much effort into developing juniors was illustrated graphically last season, with the entire first team squad homegrown.

Traditionally, Hensall were members of the Pontefract & District League (PDCL). After the 2023 season, however, they switched to Yorkshire Premier League North.

“We wanted to change,” Rich explains, “because, year on year, we were going to the same places, seeing the same people. We said ‘let’s have a go somewhere else, let’s go to different grounds’.” 

Placed for 2024 in the YPLN’s Division Two Ebor, the first team finished third, securing promotion to Division One Ebor.

“The season went really well,” says Rich. “We were a bit unsure about the standard. But it was the standard we hoped it would be. It was very competitive. 

“When you change leagues, it’s about getting a few wins, being competitive and surviving, and by winning promotion the first team went above and beyond.

“The second team was a different story. They came bottom of Division Five Ebor albeit through no fault of their own. They had some bad decisions regarding weather, and there were three or four new teams that had come in, with Hensall, that we thought were placed incorrectly within the league system.

“Then, there was player availability. It’s always tough, at some point in a season, with player availability. We had to concede one game, which isn’t too bad. It’s never great, though, conceding a game.”

To augment their first team squad, this winter Hensall signed two players – Karl Buxton and Matthew Daniel – from Knottingley Town, who play in the PDCL’s Premier Division.

Karl is a top-order bat and an off-spin bowler, Matthew an opening bowler and a middle-order bat. Both played in the National Village Cup tie against South Holderness.

“The aim for the first team is promotion again,” says Rich. “We were in a division of 12, last season, and eight of us went up. We were competitive. There is no reason why we can’t go out and beat those teams again.

“By signing Karl and Matthew, we have strengthened our squad. They are two fantastic players, who will complement the other lads and provide competition for places.”

Another new development at Hensall is the formation of a third team, which will contest the YPLN’s Sunday Humber Division Two, and consist of second-team players not selected on any given Saturday and Under-15s ready for a taste of senior cricket.

Hensall’s fourth senior team, a T20 side, play in the Snaith & District Evening League, a Thursday competition, which in 2024 boasted 12 member clubs.

In 2025, the second team will be captained by Andrew Barker, who spent almost a decade skippering the firsts. “There are four or five juniors in the second team, and Andrew will help bring them on. He will provide some batting depth and spin bowling.”

Back to the National Village Cup tie, for which Hensall were missing five regulars (including Tenerife-holidaying wicketkeeper/batsman Thornton) and South Holderness fielded seven first-teamers. Ineligible (I was told) for the visitors was star winter recruit Ash Wills, the multi-talented former Kirk Ella all-rounder and captain.

On an immaculate surface (not sure, in April, I’ve seen an outfield so fast), South Holderness reached the drinks halfway house on 93-4. As a contest, about even.

Then, captain Luke Ingram (96 off 103, 15 fours) and Jack Harrison (72 off 45, 11 fours and two sixes) put on 119 for the fifth wicket. Ingram’s classical strokes charmed spectators. When Harrison middled a ball, it stayed middled. “Don’t let your heads drop,” a Hensall fielder urged team-mates.

Reece Wilkinson (2-37 from five) removed South Holderness’s dynamic duo before a useful 33 not out, including a last ball six, from Luke Riley advanced the visitors to a formidable 262-7. Lucas Wilson cheered his watching mum by taking 3-29 from eight.

The Humberhead Levels can catch a breeze, and this particular afternoon was no exception. Thankfully, a hedge the length of the ground’s west side kept the worst at bay. On the occasions the sun appeared, it was almost warm enough to shed a waterproof.

Hensall soon found themselves 10-1 but opener Whaley (66 off 73, nine fours and a six) and captain Wilkinson (62 off 93, seven fours and a six) prevented capsize. 

Whaley and Wilkinson added 134 for the second wicket – and had the opposition worried. A drinks posting of 105-1 compared favourably.

“This isn’t a friendly, Holderness,” Harrison boomed at his colleagues. “Something’s at stake here. There’s a game to be won. Do we want it?”

Harrison is an early contender for my Quip of the Season award. Fielding on the boundary, next to the helpful hedge, he perched between deliveries on a bench (dedicated to Ken Winter, a former Hensall Cricket Club chairman and life member).

After several overs had elapsed, Harrison was asked to field elsewhere, doubtless in cooler climes. “Can I take the bench with me?” he queried.

Hensall’s challenge faded with the dismissals of Whaley and Wilkinson, although their successors – notably Charlie Haller (19 off 21, two fours) and new recruit Daniel (13 not out off 24) – got stuck in and saw out the full allocation of overs, pushing the total to a respectable 206-5. Harry Metcalfe collected 2-30 from eight.

In round one of the Voneus National Village Cup, on Sunday, April 27, South Holderness will host Moorsholm, of the Langbaurgh League’s second tier. Moorsholm were one of six Group Three clubs to receive a preliminary round bye.

It is a shame I didn’t get to Bird Lane before demolition of the neighbouring former Eggborough power station’s eight-strong cooling tower platoon, a rare vertical feature – standing 300 feet – in a relentlessly horizontal landscape. The last four were sent tumbling, a tidy implosion, in October 2021. An industrial estate now occupies the site.

“You could see the cooling towers from the pavilion and the square,” recalls Rich. “It feels weird without them, still. 

“When I opened the bowling, I used to try to bowl with the wind. I always looked at the chimneys, to see which way the steam was going. A few of us went to the cricket field pavilion to watch the cooling towers being blown up.”

The improving quality of Hensall’s facilities – not least their good-size, manicured pitch – has been recognised this season by requests to stage representative fixtures.

These include, on May 25 and 28, and August 11, outings for the MCC’s North Yorkshire Girls Hub, for whom Chloe Thornton plays. Yorkshire Disability have a match at Hensall on June 8.

After 13 years of tending Hensall’s square, Robbie Reeson has hung up his brush. Chris Thornton – a busy man! – is assuming the responsibility. He will be assisted by a small team of others who tend the outfield, the football pitch and the general surrounds.

Once the Bird Lane pavilion revamp is paid for, Hensall’s next fundraiser will focus on permanent outdoor nets with an artificial surface. The desired type cost £60,000.

“They would benefit us massively, in a number of ways,” says Rich. “This year, at Read School, Drax, we had a 12-week winter net programme indoors, which was a big outlay for the club. We’re hoping that, by having nets like these, if we get dry weather, we’ll be able to use them, outdoors, to cut down that winter programme. 

“Also, because we’ve got so many teams, we’re using a lot of wickets. By having these nets installed, it would mean fewer training wickets, and more wickets for games.”

Given the pace of recruitment at Hensall Cricket Club, one suspects demand for match wickets will become only keener!

To enquire about playing cricket at Hensall, ring Rich Whaley on 07387 072879.

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