NYSD: The tortoise and the hare at Skelton Castle

Bank Holiday Monday’s match at Skelton Castle Cricket Club brought to my mind the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare: slow and steady wins the race.

That was the chief takeaway from the splendidly named Old Dog Kennels ground, where nine-player Preston-on-Tees managed to defeat, by seven wickets, Skelton Castle, their North Yorkshire & South Durham Premier League Division Four rivals.

Contrasting approaches

More, shortly, about an unexpectedly – 11 versus nine did not promise much! – absorbing contest, hallmarked by contrasting approaches to the business of batting.

Skelton – or Skelton-in-Cleveland, to use its proper name – is a village located between Guisborough and Saltburn. The freshness of its air, delivered on the day of my visit by a welcome light breeze, indicated it is closer to the latter than to the former.

It may have been Skelton’s proximity to the notoriously windy northeast Yorkshire coast that led Frank Wild, the village’s most famous son, to be so hardened to cold weather.

Commander Wild, who died in 1939 at the age of 66, went on no fewer than five expeditions of exploration to Antarctica, where he was noted for wearing shorts. 

Since 2016, a Bill Harling sculpture of Wild, who grew up in the Skelton district with 11 brothers and sisters, before becoming a trusted ally of fellow explorer Ernest Shackleton, has adorned the village’s Ringrose Orchard, a garden and orchard.

Another Harling sculpture, the Spirit of East Cleveland, unveiled in 2019 opposite Skelton’s Duke William pub, celebrates the area’s rich ironstone mining heritage. North Skelton, in 1964, was the last ironstone mine to close in Cleveland.

Three tightly grouped figures, fashioned in bronze by Harling, depict miners in the acts of loading iron ore into tubs, searching for the most advantageous place to drill, and using an 18ft pole to find and release the keystone. Trained initially at Middlesbrough College of Art, Middlesbrough-born Harling lives at Skelton.

The Old Dog Kennels ground is part of the Skelton Castle estate hence, I guess, the cricket club’s reassuringly solid name.

Skelton’s first castle, a Norman motte and bailey structure, denoted nowadays by a ring of trees, was built during the early 1100s by Robert de Brus, responsible also for building the priory at Guisborough. 

Five generations later, a related de Brus, also Robert, was crowned King of Scotland. Do you remember the ‘spider legend’ from primary school history lessons?

During the medieval period, Skelton acquired a grander replacement castle, complete with moat and impressive defensive walls. By the mid-1700s, however, it had become so dilapidated, friends of the owner, John Hall Stevenson, dubbed it ‘Crazy Castle’.

Doubtless embarrassed, Stevenson had ‘Crazy Castle’ pulled down and, circa 1785, began construction of a third Skelton Castle, whose Gothic design drew on a hotch-potch of architectural ideas. It took 30 years to build and, to this day, amid landscaped grounds, stands a short distance (albeit out of sight) southwest of the cricket ground.

Skelton Castle Cricket Club got going in 1876 – four years after the opening of Skelton Park ironstone mine and, to serve Skinningrove’s ironstone mines, the completion of an 11-arch, redbrick railway viaduct over Skelton Beck. The abandoned viaduct survives.

In recent years, great emphasis at Skelton Castle, formerly of the Langbaurgh League and winners, for the first time, in 1912, of the Cleveland and Teesside Amateur Challenge Cup, has been placed on connecting with the community and developing young players.

Skelton Castle run two senior teams, a women’s side, teams for Under-17s, Under-15s, Under-13s and Under-11s, an under-nines softball side and girls’ junior teams.

Old Dog Kennels is an impressive ground. Its arrestingly large size is accentuated by the constricted nature of its access, a narrow track off the busy A174 Skelton Bypass.

The pitch, flat and circular, is fringed by masses of spare turf, the sections nearest the boundary rope neatly trimmed.

Dominating the ground, from its east side, is a smart, good sized pavilion. Of traditional design, if apparently of recent construction, it houses, beneath a central gable and a clock tower topped by a cricket-themed weathervane, two dressing rooms, a kitchen and the renowned Cow Corner tea bar. Out front are decking and picnic tables.

Best vantage point – where most spectators opted to park – is the top of a grassy bank in the site’s southeast corner.

Marooned amid a mass of unused turf at the south end of the ground is a two-lane practice net with an artificial surface.

Old Dog Kennels is a little too open and spacious to feel truly intimate, although mature trees, on three sides, lend a pleasant sensation of enclosure and seclusion.

Beyond the farther – west – side, thickly wooded slopes drop steeply to Skelton Beck. During the tea interval, I had a nosy in the wood, without going down to the water.

On what felt like the last day of summer, with the world and his wife clogging the roads (driving up, a bumper-to-bumper, teeming Helmsley looked like Hell on Earth), Old Dog Kennels was the ideal spot to enact a Bank Holiday Monday great escape.

And, so, to the cricket – likely to be my last game in Yorkshire this 2025 season. Intriguingly, Skelton Castle and Preston-on-Tees (which is just north of Eaglescliffe) are the only First XIs in the North Yorkshire & South Durham Premier League’s fifth tier.

Before play began, Skelton Castle stood fourth (of 12) in the league table, within striking distance of Richmondshire Fourths, who occupied the second promotion position, behind Billingham Synthonia Seconds.

Preston-on-Tees, eighth, were safe from the threat of relegation. Only when the yellow-capped visitors, who lost the toss and were asked to field, went out on the pitch, did I realise they had only nine players.

I was told that a number of the Preston players are taxi drivers (four arrived, together, barely 15 minutes before the off, in a Stockton Cars cab!). Clearly, as the cost of living crisis continues, year after year, some of those drivers – all “good cricketers”, I was told – were not in a position to decline a bumper day of Bank Holiday takings.

Voicing disappointment at losing the toss, a Preston player remarked: “We were hoping to bat then we could get it [the game] over with.”

Unaccountably (over-confidence, perhaps?), Skelton Castle batted as if Armageddon were scheduled before nightfall. Several of their batters seemed to be in a great hurry.

Individuals scored quickly but were dismissed before racking up a damagingly big total. As catching opportunities rained down, Preston’s fielders, distributed sparsely but nevertheless in attacking formation, could scarcely believe their luck.

As one elderly gentleman I used to see regularly at Bradford [Premier] Leagues games was fond of saying: “The trouble with batsmen is they cannot wait to get out.”

From 50-1 to 87-4, Skelton Castle’s top four all contributed: captain Jack Verrill, in at three, hit 30 off 19 (seven fours); No 1 Sam Malbon-Green 27 off 24 (one six, four fours); No 5 Dan Belsham 25 off 18 (five fours); and No 2 Tom Hodgson 22 off 24 (three fours).

The most sensible batting came from No 7 Amy Hurst, who stuck around for 42 balls in making 22, including two fours. Hurst, the last batter dismissed, put on 26 for the 10th wicket with No 11 Mark Smith (12 not out off 18, one four).

Having lost their fifth, sixth and seventh wickets for the addition of one run, Skelton Castle were bowled out, in four minutes under two hours, for 173 off 29.5 overs.

For all but five balls, Preston relied on three bowlers. Fast-medium man Waqas Khalid, to emerge as the game’s most valuable player, took 4-56 from 10 overs. Spinners Zahid Imran (3-47 from nine) and Ali Asghar (2-56 from 10) provided good support.

Safe in the knowledge Skelton Castle’s unused 10 overs would be added to their 40, Preston’s reply proceeded in carefully measured fashion.

Compare and contrast the teams’ drinks scores at 20 overs: Skelton Castle 127-8, Preston-on-Tees 62-1.

Observing the digital scoreboard in ‘crawl’ mode, a home supporter suggested: “They’re not going to catch us, scoring like this.”

Shahid Mahmood (50 off 63, one six, nine fours) was more adventurous than his fellow opener, Danny Brookes (33 off 98, four fours), Preston’s ultra-patient captain, whose sterling efforts on a hot, sunny afternoon were sustained, in part, by a pitch visit, from his water bottle-toting wife.

Preston had reached 61 when, after surviving two or three close calls, Mahmood was dismissed, moments after completing an important half-century.

Brookes then set about building another telling partnership. With Khalid (55 off 55, 10 fours), Brookes helped put on 84 for the second wicket.

In the event, despite a brief wobble when Khalid, who brought up his half-century with a four, was caught by Mark Smith off Jack Verrill’s bowling, Preston needed only three balls over the 40 to reach 175-3, securing 25 match points to Skelton Castle’s five.

The fact that only one run – a wide! – was scored off the 39th and 40th overs illustrates graphically how much attention Preston paid to the manner of their reply.

Trying absolutely everything to break their visitors’ stoical resistance, Skelton Castle, whose deflation near the end was obvious from their body language, used nine bowlers. 

Only Hurst and wicketkeeper Ewan Found did not bowl. Best figures were fourth-on Mark Smith’s 1-13 from seven.

Victory completed for Preston a league double over their hosts. Skelton Castle lost, by 20 runs, at Preston, on July 12. 

With Richmondshire Fourths thrashing, by eight wickets, visiting Yarm Seconds, Skelton Castle’s promotion hopes have taken a serious – very possibly fatal – blow.

During the Preston innings, I had barely embarked on a clockwise lap of the boundary, when I spotted a chap, coming the other way, in a Hunslet Rugby League Club cap.

Although a long-time resident of Redcar, he was originally from Leeds. We had a long, enjoyable chat about rugby league (and other things). As he parted, he said: “It’s nice to meet someone who can remember when Hunslet had a good team.” Am I that old?!

There was one bloke at the Old Dog Kennels who did even more running than the Skelton Castle and Preston-on-Tees players.

About the time the game got underway, an athletic type pulled into the car park then got changed into serious running kit. A considerable while later, he was back, looking hot and tired yet strangely euphoric. I couldn’t resist asking what he had been up to.

Turned out, he’d done the Saltburn half-marathon course (noted for its ups and downs), in preparation for a trail running event he was to contest this coming weekend.

In common with Frank Wild, and I, the guy was wearing shorts. Way to go!

Enjoyed the read?

You can check out other club visits by Andrew in his column, Miles Per Gallon.

Here are all of our club cricket articles, with the latest first.