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Lurking on my ‘groundhopping’ bucket list for years, a visit to the sublime, sleepy setting of Thixendale Cricket Club lived up to – nay, exceeded – expectations.
Put simply, it was a slice of sporting serendipity: when each piece of the jigsaw slotted neatly into place.
The weather, in what is proving to be a decidedly dodgy summer, was glorious. Mellow evening sunshine, and clear conditions, displayed the Thixendale ground at its finest.
The game, a second-versus-first Division Three encounter with the undefeated Stockton & Hopgrove, Thixendale’s Foss Evening League rivals, had everything.
To cap it all, after two hours, 10 minutes of nip-and-tuck action, a rip-roaring contest, which went to the penultimate ball, finished as a tie.
Crucially, Thixendale were a player short. I’m sure I overheard somebody say the missing man was attending Driffield Show, a big deal in the Wolds.
Sadly, of late, only midweek cricket is played at Thixendale.
Cricket aside, Thixendale, 20 miles east of York, and in almost every sense a world apart from the busy, throbbing county capital, offers two claims to fame:
Firstly, no fewer than 16 wolds – steep-sided, narrow-floored, chalk valleys – lead into the village, whose human population of about 130 is outnumbered substantially by sheep. Indeed, the cricket ground occupies a spectacular wold, one which strikes away, on a straight course, northeast, to a perpendicular junction with Burdale;
Secondly, owing partly to unhelpful topography, television reception didn’t arrive in Thixendale until 1997. When, finally, the switch was flicked, the landlady of the Cross Keys, the village pub, close to the cricket ground, told the media:
“At least we’re no longer seen as some kind of rural museum. We can finally see just how much rubbish is on the television.” Some sound bite!
You’re never sure, with midweek cricket, if a game is going ahead until the players start arriving. Given work commitments, this can be alarmingly close to the scheduled start.
After rumbling along a car’s width cul-de-sac – ‘No Turning’ – leading to the cricket ground, we fetched up at a bolted gate. A woman, unused to passing traffic, emerged from a house: “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked.
Then: “Are you here for the huts [glamping-type accommodation at the village end of the cricket pitch]?”
Her face broke into a smile when we revealed we’d come to watch cricket. “Are they at home tonight?” she mused. “According to the fixtures, they are!” we responded.
Through the unbolted gate, we parked near the pavilion, a modern, low, wooden structure. All was locked up. No stumps denoting the wicket. No sign of life.
We decided to give it until ten past six then dash back to Stamford Bridge or down to Londesborough Park, two other Foss League clubs playing that evening.
Soon, however, a Stockton & Hopgrove player turned up. “As far as I know,” he replied to our “Is the game on?” query.
Duly, in dribs and drabs, the car-borne teams trundled down the lane and through the gate. Many comments about the lovely conditions. “About time,” seemed to be the gist.
Stumps, a manual scoreboard and tables and chairs were brought out of the pavilion, along with an aged pitch line marker.
One of the home players, having topped up its reservoir with what seemed to be almost the last of the marking fluid, proceeded, hesitantly, around the boundary.
The machine’s violent squeaking drowned out even the omnipresent wood pigeons’ monotonous cooing.
“Is it leaving a line?” the marker man shouted, above the racket. It certainly was, because a team-mate, carrying miniature flags, followed in his tyre treads, bending then inserting.
I’ve walked through several wolds in the idyllic area encompassing Thixendale, Fridaythorpe, Huggate, Millington and Warter. Some are so narrow, they look like disused railway cuttings.
The wold containing the Thixendale cricket ground is a little wider than some. But, still, between the rearing wold sides, there is barely room for a pavilion, an oblong pitch, a right of way (separating pavilion and pitch) and a single-track back road to Burdale.
So steep are the wold sides, they must approach the critical 45 degrees limit for vegetation to prosper. Terracettes (ooh, that takes me back, 41 years, to A-Level physical geography) are a tell-tale indicator of how the soil is only just clinging on.
Scramble up the wold, behind the pavilion, for a sensational view of the play, far below.
Bleating sheep – heard but not seen – battle for supremacy with the wood pigeons.
Later, deliciously, during the Thixendale reply, a barn owl, hunting prey at dusk, swooped along the wold’s lower edge, opposite our spectating position. Twice, the crepuscular wonder dived into the undergrowth. Twice, it emerged, empty-beaked.
Despite there being a hedge and wire fences elsewhere, at the near – village – end of the ground, there isn’t any pitch barrier. Beyond the boundary, and a broken line of mature trees, the aforementioned glamping huts, Wool [sleeps two, at £110 a night, the cheaper] and Wicket, are positioned in front of a working farm.
Oddly, the square, looking very green, is much nearer the Burdale end of the ground than the village. Perhaps its location has something to do with the proximity of the farm, a handful of cottages and the glamping huts.
Safety first, and all that.
We were playing 16 overs. A home player explained that, the minute the sun dips behind the wold, it gets extremely dark (and cold, I daresay) in the middle of the pitch.
The away team bat first in the Foss Evening League. Stockton & Hopgrove’s 103-8 off their 16 owed much to opener James Kerrison.
As team-mates came and went, Kerrison bludgeoned six sixes and two fours in scoring 61. He was bowled, by Ben Brown (1-14 from one), off the innings’s third-last delivery.
Kerrison’s colleagues – of whom only No 5 Savio Braganza (11) managed double figures – maintained a sense of humour apparent throughout the game. From the crease, one called out: “Can you update the board, lads. I want to see how badly we’re doing.”
Once I’d descended to pitch level, a Thixendale fielder noticed me, snapping away. “I hope you’re photographing the scenery – not the cricket.”
In fact, the cricket, as the drama unfolded, wasn’t far off spellbinding.
A farmer, getting on a bit in years (aren’t we all?), turned up with a friendly collie, Bella. She spent most of the proceedings munching grass. Learned behaviour from sheep, I suppose. Significantly, both stayed until the end.
Stockton & Hopgrove gifted Thixendale a few early runs – byes and the like. Admonishment from the covers: “Come on, boys, let’s tidy it up a bit. It’s sloppy.”
There was an unfortunate incident, midway through the Thixendale reply, when Stockton & Hopgrove wicketkeeper Steve Fraser, caught unawares, was struck, accidentally, on the back of his close-cropped head, by a ball thrown by a team-mate.
Immediate concern, as Fraser lay on the turf. “Take five, Steve,” was the best advice.
Not too shakily, Fraser, a welt visible where the ball had made contact, shuffled off the pitch. “I’m alright,” he told the relieved gallery.
Nevertheless, a spectator strode away, to a nearby house (possibly his own), and returned with a bag of restorative frozen peas.
It wasn’t long before Fraser was out on the pitch again, albeit not behind the stumps, to bring the visitors’ fielding complement back to full strength.
From 57-2, after wicketkeeper Simon Walgate (34 off 26, including two sixes and three fours) and Edward Medforth (16 off 18, including a six and a four) had put on 46 for the first wicket, Thixendale slipped to 83-6.
Useful bowling from Rathnayake Athula (3-15 from four) and Adam Kerrison (3-35 from four). Two wickets went down in consecutive balls.
The hosts required 21 runs from the last 24 balls, 17 from 18 then seven off 14. In the penultimate over, boundary fielder Harry Paver spilled a difficult catch.
Would you believe it, two balls later, an identical chance fell his way. Reaching up with one hand, Paver fumbled the ball then clung on, with both, to the ricochet. A huge cheer from his Stockton & Hopgrove team-mates!
And so, four needed off the final over. The first three deliveries were two, dot, one, leaving the scores tied. A wicket, the batsman bowled, from the fourth, cannily, by a slower ball, brought to the crease the game’s youngest player, by some margin, Bodie Horsley. Early teens, I would guess.
The batsman he replaced was heard to mutter: “Sorry!” as they passed. With no eleventh batsman waiting in the wings, a lot of pressure for a youngster!
Horsley missed the over’s fifth ball but his non-striking partner, Tom Yates (15 off nine), attempted a pell-mell single. The alert replacement wicketkeeper, Daminda Bandara, gathered the ball and threw down the stumps, with Yates well out of his ground.
Horsley marooned on 0 not out. 103-9 (all out, effectively), and a thrilling tie.
Really, a fair result.
Certainly, the players seemed happy enough with the outcome. And so, of course, we were. Much better than being stuck in front of the telly!
Enjoyed the read?
You can check out other club visits by Andrew in his column, Miles Per Gallon.
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Brilliant