Life lessons at Airedale as Denholme triumph

Mark Doherty heads to Airedale Cricket Club where their 2nd XI hosted Denholme CC 2nd XI in this Craven and District Cricket League Division Four fixture.

Argricultural at Otley

I wasn’t sure if it would be a portent for my day as I filtered into the traffic that surrounded the Otley Show midmorning. I hadn’t realised that the annual agricultural show was due to take place that day, and my route was taking me right past the entrance to the showground.

As an aside, I believe that the event is advertised as the oldest one-day agricultural show in the country, with it claiming to have been held every year since 1796…and there are reports of a show being held by farmers in the area before that date as well.

Now in its 229th year, I can confirm that it is still going strong – given the evidence of all the cars, Landrovers, trailers, horse boxes, and footfall crossing the roads to head to the ground.

Slight delay incurred, I navigated the roads towards Airedale Cricket Club thinking I was trying to arrive before a midday start. Using the postcode details on Play-Cricket, they got me pretty much to the entrance of the ground; a short drive past the club sign, through the open gate off the main road, down the dusty track around the back of some houses, and the pavilion came into view.

As I’d reached the club entrance, I recognised the area I was in. Despite this being an hour away from where I live, I had bought our garden mower from Turners Garden Machinery which was a couple of hundred yards down on the other side of the road. I can highly recommend Ben Turner and his team if you are on the lookout for any garden machinery.

Considering I was supposedly only thirty-something minutes ahead of first ball, my car appeared to be only the third one in the small car park.

A tour with Chairman Trevor

A little confused I walked through the gate to one side of the pavilion and down into the ground. Chatting to one of a couple of people there, it turned out the game was due to start at 1:30pm and not midday as advertised on Play Cricket!

To be fair, that meant I didn’t have to rush my normal routine, so I could have a few conversations and take a walk around the ground to enjoy the views – which are well worth it!

I was lucky enough to catch up with chairman Trevor Cox, a stalwart member of Airedale CC for around 50 years, as he prepared to head to Bradford (to umpire I believe) and was given a tour of the club; Trevor provided an interesting history of the modern pavilion that replaced the wooden one in the early 2000’s.

In the corner of one of the rooms was a painting of the old pavilion, pointing to a place on the picture, he recounted a story about how a batsman had been batting, complaining of feeling unwell and after his innings had laid down on the embankment in front of the building and had a heart attack!

Trevor quickly added that he had recovered…so the story didn’t have a bad ending, which was a relief.

Juniors ambitions

The club has been continually improving the facilities ever since the new pavilion was put in place and they are in the process of expanding their junior section and hoping to attract more young players to the club over the next few seasons. If you have kids that want to play in and around Keighley, then Airedale is certainly a club that you would want to have a look at.

Personal tour over, I went for a boundary walk as the players arrived and started to warm up for the game.

There are some works going on in the field next to the ground and I was told it was to do with the water company; work had been ongoing for quite some time but with minimal disruption to the club. At the bottom of the ground, a drystone wall blocked a direct view of the River Aire and the path that runs alongside it.

One of the players informed me that the ground was on the floodplain, and when the Aire flooded, the cricket club could be up to eight feet under! Thankfully, there was no chance of that happening on Saturday given the continued spell of excellent weather we’ve had this Spring.

The views across the valley and up and down it are impressive, and looking back up at the Pavilion from the far side, the lie of the Pavilion and houses overlooking the club is a wonderful sight.

Heading back to the car to fetch the camera, I noted the pavilion had one of the modern defibrillators affixed to the back for use by the club and the local community. Given the story about the batsman earlier…I was glad to see that they were prepared for that possibility going forward!

Par score of 150?

Both clubs have played two games in Division Four, with Airedale having the slightly better record…but as with most leagues in sport, looking at a table two or three games in isn’t any sort of guide to form, as it is too early to make any meaningful conclusions.

Airedale won the toss and decided to bat and as this is a new ground to me, I was keen to chat to any of the batsmen walking around the perimeter to get an inside view as to the sort of score that I could expect…and what could be classed as a good total to defend. The general consensus was 150 being a reasonable score.

Openers John Pollard and Tim Crossley looked really good, with both confidently stroking the ball around the ground, scoring runs regularly and building the total quickly. This was a 40 over game and my early reckoning around the tenth was that they would easily surpass 150.

As I enjoyed the game and wandered around the boundary rope, a gentleman call Ralph stopped next to me with his lovely dog who wanted stroking. We got chatting and it turned out that Ralph played for Airedale but was recovering from a major heart attack just around two months ago.

Never too late: Crucial 999 call

I hope he doesn’t mind me recounting some of his story here, but there is a reason for doing so. I understand he had been taken ill when helping his family clear his mother’s house, feeling unwell with pains across his back and neck. Putting it down to the exertions of the day, he had taken a break to see if the symptoms had gone away, but they hadn’t.

Between him and his wife, they had decided to call 999 and when the paramedics had turned up, he had suffered the major heart attack. It is clear that early action by him and his wife calling for an ambulance may very well have saved his life. The right people were there at the right time.

The reason I am able to tell this story is because he was there walking around the ground, following his recovery plan…having not ignored the strange symptoms and sought proper medical intervention in time. My own thoughts went to my father who hadn’t. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to chat with him.

Back to the game and things put into perspective, I enjoyed the enthralling battle going on between the batters and bowlers. Tim’s wicket was first to fall in the 23rd over having scored a really good 27 from 65 balls – providing a solid foil to the bowling, alongside John’s innings.

John was to last until the 34th over having scored a magnificent 68 off 105 deliveries, and helping push the home team near to that 150-run total I had been told to expect. By the end of the 40 overs, Airedale had amassed 181 for nine wickets and the teams headed in for tea.

I had been very kindly invited in to partake, and after putting the camera into the shade of a tree and fetching a change of memory cards and refreshed battery, I headed inside to see what was on offer. John Fuller had told me the teas were good at Airedale…and he certainly wasn’t wrong.

Spoilt for choice at tea

A long table down the middle of the room had a wonderful selection of sandwiches, warm sausage rolls, pork pies, cheese and onion rolls, quiche, crisps, and various cakes. I was completely spoilt for choice!

Popping a selection onto my plate and picking up a cold fizzy drink, I headed back out to sit on the bench by the scorer’s box and enjoy the fantastic food and warm weather.

Players [and myself] suitably refreshed, the second innings got underway with Hussnain Ali and Ismaeel Ali heading out to start the visitors’ reply.

It became quickly evident that the pair were enjoying the conditions as they stroked the ball around the ground; Hussnain, in particular, hitting the ball powerfully to the boundaries.

Ismaeel was the first to be dismissed, but he’d got an excellent 34 runs from just 33 balls…a great knock from the young man. Richard Taylor was next in, striding confidently to the centre and was to form a match-winning partnership with Hussnain.

It took the visitors 34 overs to overhaul their host’s total, with the penultimate ball being hit for four to tie before a single was run to win the game.

Richard Taylor had scored 37 from 66 deliveries but it was Hussnain Ali who starred with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 92 from 92 balls, including 15 fours and one huge six.

Denholme had won the game, taking 19 points and Airedale had added five points to their season tally. It had been a really competitive game of cricket, ultimately won by a player on song and unlucky not to reach his century.

A reflective drive home

Despite really enjoying the cricket and tea, I must admit, the day was more about the stories I had been told. I could write a few more pages about those conversations…however, the one thing I would ask; if you are feeling unwell, feeling like something is wrong, don’t ignore those symptoms. Seek help, talk to someone, do it early…it may save your life.

A very sobering thought.

PHOTOS

Want to read more?

Here are all of Mark’s articles and photos on Cricket Yorkshire.

To see more of his photography, you can visit caughtlight.com or he’s @caughtlight on Twitter/X.

There’s also the Caught Light Photography Facebook page.

I also highly recommend his blog called Leica Moments which includes days out at grounds around Yorkshire.