A rainy Saturday
By Brian Sanderson
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I began my weekend at Harrogate, who were playing Driffield in a Yorkshire Premier League North match. Unlike many old clubs, Harrogate’s founding may be dated precisely, to June 9, 1877. Interestingly, its first women’s cricket was played at St George’s Road as early as 1890—some four years before its first Yorkshire county match. The last of these was played in 1996, after which Yorkshire decided to limit itself to Headingley and Scarborough. One of Harrogate’s favourite sons, and probably its most famous, was Maurice Leyland, who played for the club in the 1920s before starring for Yorkshire and England.
Today they were third in the league, Driffield sixth. But whatever hopes either had of climbing the table seemed to have been scuppered by the rain. You must confess it looked rather bleak:
At 12:30 I gave it up, and drove to Otley, about ten miles away. Otley was founded in 1820, and moved in to its present home, Cross Green, in 1862. Today the locals, at the head of the First Division of the Airedale-Wharfedale Senior Cricket League, were playing their nearest rivals Collingham & Linton.
When I arrived and checked the score, I found that I had missed an opening salvo chockfull of action: Otley, in only the fourteenth over of their innings, were 100 for one. This was down mostly to the efforts of Alex Atkinson, who went on to score an excellent seventy, including fourteen fours and a six.
Collingham’s star bowlers were leg-spinner Toby Jacklin and Luke Jarvis, a left-armer whose fifteen overs yielded two wickets for only 38 runs. At the back end of the innings Oliver Halliday contributed a brisk 51, including two huge maximums—one over the pavilion and the houses behind it, and finally into the road behind them; and the second into the local rugby ground. This took Otley to 275 in the 47th over, at which point it began to rain and got very cold.
Despairing of a July that felt more like autumn, I gave up again and drove back home to Leeds. On arriving, however, the weather was so fine that I made fresh cricketing plans, and set off to see Kirkstall Education Seconds v. Horsforth Old Park Seconds.
Kirkstall, when I arrived, had scored 173 in 38 their overs, and Horsforth were about to make their response. Two young Kirkstall bowlers, Butt and Hussain, seemed to have won the match after twenty overs, when the score was 62 for four. But then the Horsforth captain Sam Dobson united with John Brough, and with help of three missed catches, they won the match by five wickets.
Finally I headed home, where after a hearty dinner, I opened my computer to find that Harrogate had won a twenty-over match by seven wickets, while Otley had rolled over Collingham for 75, Oliver Halliday taking three wickets. You would have gotten very long odds on all three matches being finished. Such are the vagaries of the English weather. When I find the time, I may catch up with the rest of the Otley match on YouTube:
Let’s see what tomorrow brings at Arthington.
Brian Sanderson is an ACS member. He serves on the Yorkshire Cricket Archives Committee. If you would like to contribute to this newsletter, please either respond to the email in which you received it, or leave a comment below.