By Peter Stafford (March 1985) Back
How do you begin to try and put into perspective such a season as we
experienced in 1984? A season during which 22,000 more runs were scored than in
any of the previous fifty-five years of the Bolton League's existence; during
which 45 centuries were hit, 31 more than ever before, and ten times the
seasonal average; during which 50 was exceeded on 297 occasions, almost double
the previous best; and during which more than thirty League and club batting
records went by the board. True, each club played four extra games than ever
before, but that fact alone would hardly account for increases of such
magnitude, for even in the superb weather that we enjoyed in 1984, twenty-two
matches, the equivalent of three league programmes, were ruined by rain. There
were seven overseas amateurs in action, but then, there were also seven in 1983,
although admittedly not of equal standard. The wickets were generally excellent,
thanks to a combination of sunshine and able groundsmen, and another factor, one
that I don't remember hearing voiced before, could be to do with the much
improved standards in umpiring, which results in batsmen being given a fairer
chance than they were, so legend has it, in the olden, golden days for bowlers
back in the early days of the League. All these things conspired, then, to
provide an explosive summer in terms of run scoring which will be remembered and
discussed for many years to come, except, of course, by the poor bowlers, who
toiled and cursed their way around the league as the wickets became truer, the
stumps grew smaller, and the bats grew wider! One such player deserves special
mention. Brad Parker, Little Lever's Australian, was the only bowler to create a
new record in this batsman's summer, that of the most wickets in a season by a
Little Lever amateur. The fact that the previous holder was one of cricket's
legends would have given the feat an extra meaning to him. Just two more
statistics before we leave figures behind and turn to facts. Greenmount, in
their first season in the League, scored more runs, 5,225, than had been
accumulated before in Cup and League games by any side, to be precise, 1,500
more! And Bradshaw's 4,775 in League games only, stretched that particularly
record by 1,300.
Only four clubs' names ever appeared on top of the League table during 1984.
Kearsley and Little Lever made all the running in the first half of the season,
a period during which it seemed likely that one of these .two talent-packed
sides would be first to the post. Farnworth Social Circle made a brief
challenge, but, to continue the racing analogy, fell at the first major jump,
the match at Little Lever. But at the halfway stage, following huge wins over
the League's two newcomers, Farnworth's name appeared at the top of the list for
the first time, and there it stayed until stumps were pulled up for the last
time, to give Brian Wallwork's fine side its first taste of championship success
since 1965. Farnworth were deserving title-winners. They had, of course, two
superb cricketers from the other side of the world, who took Bolton League
cricket by the scruff of its neck and turned its batting records upside down.
Rod Bower's 1,535 could well stand for as long as local cricket-lovers remember
this most powerful and likeable of players, which will be for many years. But,
remembering that Farnworth didn't win anything at all during Ken Rickards golden
year of 1955, it could well have been Tucker's 72 wickets, allied to those of
Phil Hall and Chris Lomax, which were, in the final analysis, the crucial
factor. That, of course, added to the supportive batting of Wallwork, Axford and
the rest, and the excellent fielding and catching which backed up the main
strike bowlers so effectively.
The Hamer Cup competition, destined to be finally decided on the fate of the
last possible ball, began on a glorious Sunday in early May. Walkden contrived
to lose after having scored 25 1, and Heaton, Little Lever and Tonge each met a
similar fate after having made a respectable total. Young Atherton bowled Astley
Bridge to success against Egerton, and in the remaining First Round game,
Westhoughton's 173 proved thirty too many for Horwich. The weather was less kind
to Round Two, when only three of the games were won and lost on the designated
day. There were no close finishes, and no real surprises. Farnworth eased
through comfortably against Astley Bridge. Ricky Warburton's 19minute
half-century left Eagley needing too many, and Westhoughton had Steve Woods and
Harrison to thank for ending Farnworth Social Circle's hopes for a major trophy
in their first season. A day or two later Kearsley disposed of Bradshaw, whose
155 was never going to be enough.
The two semi-finals were something of a disappointment. Farnworth and
Westhoughton, batting first, could only muster a joint 174, and although
Greenmount and Kearsley each lost six wickets before claiming the right to meet
in the Final, the results were never really in doubt from tea-time onwards, hard
though Tucker and Lomax on the one ground, and lain Hill and Shastri on the
other, fought to keep their respective sides in the competition.
Many words have been written and spoken about the Final, most of them centred
around the last ball of the match. But there were a lot of other things to
enjoy, most of which tended to be forgotten in the euphoria and dejection which
surrounded the climax. Several Greenmount batsmen played well, notably Hyatt and
Bennett, without being able to cash in fully on their early groundwork, and
Grant Long's7 for 79 was a fine, sustained piece of bowling which quite rightly
earned him the Man-of-the-Match award. Tom Housley, as he has done so often for
sides in the past, provided Kearsley with the sound start they needed in company
with Varley, who had been given a crucial let-off in the first over, and at
something over 100 for 1, the Springfield Road side lookedt o be firmly in the
driving seat. But after these two and Arnarnath had gone, things began to
change. Slowly, almost imperceptively, Greenmount clawed their way back into
contention. Mason took a horribly missable return catch to dismiss Long, and
when the asking rate for the last three overs had risen to nine, Kearsley looked
to be out of it. And so it was all down to the last over, with 15 still
required. 0-4-1-2-2 from the first five balls, meant that Nigel Harris, facing
Greenmount's deputy professional Murray Bennett, had to hit the last ball of the
match for six. Greenmount won't want me to dwell too much on the fact that,
improbably, he did. That, and the match itself, to which it is impossible to do
full justice in these few words, have both gone into the history books. But if
that final over was a test of character for Harris and, to a lesser degree for
young Jakeman at the other end, then the few minutes following the winning hit
provided an even greater such test for the Greenmount players. To have lost a
friendly match under those sort of circumstances would have been a
disappointment. To have lost a Cup Final in the same way must have been almost
intolerable, and the manner in which they accepted this cruellest of all blows
was an example to everyone present.
Both second team competitions were dominated by four sides, two of which,
Westhoughton and Farnworth Social Circle contested a Birtwistle Cup Final at the
Tyldesleys which attracted a gate that would have been the envy of many clubs in
terms of first tearn cricket. Westhoughton came out on top after an excellent
game in which Man-of-the-Match Stuart Horrobin was unlucky to finish on the
losing side. The championship was virtually decided in late-August, when Frank
Millhouse's fine Bradshaw side put an end to Greenmount's challenge.
Bolton League teams enjoyed scant success in the Greenall-Whitley Trophy last
season. Heaton fell at the first hurdle in a difficult game at Preston, whilst
Kearsley, having deservedly beaten Clifton on run-rate, lost in Round Two at St
Annes in a game that was decided in the last over, when some below-standard
fielding undid the good work accomplished by the Kearsley batsmen, notably
Amarnath. Little Lever went down to Dalton in Round Three after 144 from Geoff
Marsh had put them into a strong interval position, and only Horwich managed to
reach the quarter-finals. This they did by way of an easy win over St Mary's
College O.B., and two rather more testing ones against Aigburth away and
Rainhill at home, a tie that was won thanks to a fine undefeated innings from
Malcolm Warren. Their quarter-final against Oldham had to be played as an
evening fixture at a time when three of Horwich's regulars were unavailable.
Neither could they play a professional, and in the circumstances, the very
junior side that was fielded did extremely well to restrict the powerful Central
Lancashire League side to what, in the event, was a fairly unconvincing victory.
The Inter-League side once again won more matches than it lost. In what turned
out to be the last of the Wilsons Trophy competitions, the Final was again
reached, only for the Northern League to re-affirm its superiority as it won a
one-sided game to clinch a hat-trick of titles. In Round One the Bolton
Association was well-beaten, but made the League's task that much easier by
failing completely to capitalise on the excellent start given by Jeff
Shuttleworth. The League's attack was allowed to control the game to the extent
that, during the last seven overs of the Association's innings, only 17 runs
were added. Baybutt and Crowder were the pick of the bowlers, with 3 for 36 and
2 for 25 respectively. Hardcastle and Hallows put on 141 for the first wicket,
and after Hallows had gone for a fine 63, the captain saw his side home with
some ease, and was unfortunate to missout on a hundred, being two short when the
winning runs came. Great Harwood was the scene ofthe semifinal against the
Ribblesdale League, a game that became one of three distinct phases. The first
was dictated by the Bolton side, as the home batsmen stumbled to 98 for 6 in 32
overs in the face of Jim Mitchinson's 4 for 26 and a very accurate spell from
David Mason. Then the Ribblesdale League took over. A stand between Scothern and
Martin Greenhalgh, late of Farnworth, doubled the score in the last sixteen
overs, after which both of Bolton's openers were dismissed for 18. But as the
game entered its third and final phase, first Wayne Harper, and then Simon
Anderton and Mitchinson, each lent support to Little Lever's Tony Settle. The
winning hit was made with three balls remaining, after 94 had been added during
the last 12 overs. Settle's unbeaten 107 had come in only 117 deliveries and
was, without any doubt, one of the finest innings seen in 1984 in inter-league
cricket, or, come to that, any other kind of cricket! The Final, played under
superb conditions at Leyland was, as the Evening News headline so rightly said,
'No Contest'. The Bolton team was out-batted, out-bowled, and out-fielded,
especially the latter as the home side moved to 225 for 5, aided and abetted by
five dropped catches. Only Brian Cole offered resistance, and when the last
wicket fell, the difference was one of over a hundred runs.
If Settle's semi-final century was one of the season's great innings, then
another one, although in a different context, was the one played by Rod Bower in
the Trinity Cup match. His 161 not out, the third highest score ever hit by a
Bolton League batsman, came in 129 minutes, with 110 in boundary shots, and, by
tea-time, the game was over. Bower had been well-supported by first Parvez Mir,a
rid later by Steve Woods, who helped the Farnworth player add 103 for the fifth
wicket, and a final total of ~55 for 4 was reached. The Association was given a
good, brisk start by Shuttleworth and Davies, but once spinners Tee and Mason
joined forces in the League's attack, the batting became bogged down, and the
end came with the home side on 172 for 6, and with the series having been
narrowed to 7-6 in favour of the Association, who have not won now since 198 1.
The Trinity Cup occasion is always a slightly difficult day for our League
President, Mr Lyddon, who is forced to view the match wearing his other hat,
that of Managing Director of Trinity Paper Mills, and to him we extend our
thanks for his firm's continued support of this most enjoyable and entertaining
annual competition.
The League's second defeat in 1984 came at Royton on August Bank Holiday, when
the Central Lancashire League took a 2-1 lead in the series of matches for the
Edwin Taylor Memorial Trophy. There was a nice irony in this particular defeat,
as Simon Bainford, whose superb 103 put the game out of the Bolton side's reach,
was only called to play in the match as a last-minute replacement! However, his
excellent innings was well backed-up by Hunter and Bob Cooke,and although
Heaton's Mark Hutchinson and Dave Wallwork batted well in reply, no-one was able
to produce the big innings required to overhaul a score of 22 1. Egerton's Ian
Moss made a good debut in inter-league cricket, taking two wickets which
included a superb caught-and-bowled, and then hitting 23 in a last desperate
stand with Wallwork, the end of which signalled the last of Bolton's resistance,
41 runs short.
Towards the end of the summer, Kearsley added the GreenallWhitley/Evening News
Shield to their Hamer Cup success, beating Cross Cup winners Adlington in an
excellent game of Cricket at Westhoughton. Kearsley, batting first, were
grateful to Gary Harper and skipper Brian Quigley, whose late runs made the
total respectable at 18 1. For a long time, Lawrence Moore, after an opening
stand of 70 with Mick Leyland, looked capable of the captain's innings that
would bring victory to his side, but once he had gone for a fine 75, the end
came quickly with the Association side 22 runs short.
The Jubilee Finals, held once again at Little Lever, produced a re-run of the
1982 Final in which Heaton beat Walkden. For a second time, thanks to Dave
Wallwork, the Lower Pools side came out on top, and once again, our thanks are
due to the Victory Road club for the efficient and generous manner in which the
proceedings were hosted. For the eighth consecutive winter, William Townson &
Sons sponsored our Indoor Cricket Competition, when Tonge became the sixth
different winner of the Townson Trophy. They beat Walkden, Horwich, Heaton and
Greenmount, prior to going on to Haslingden and Cleckheaton, where they came to
within an ace of reaching the Lords Finals. Our thanks are due to them, and, of
course, to our sponsors for making possible this extremely enjoyable
competition.
Vaux Breweries' sponsorship of the League in general is entering into its third
term, and to them too, we are grateful, and hope that within a short space of
time the arrangement may become a little more beneficial to them than has been
the case thus far.
On glancing back through recent editions of the League Handbook, I note that 1
have been guilt of an omission, in that never once have I paid any sort of
tribute to the fine work that is achieved in the area by our local coaches.
Forty or so years ago, the coaching of young players was very much a haphazard
affair, but now, as in umpiring, it has become a highly organised and efficient
operation. This can only be to the good of our young players, and John Roberts
and his associates are to be complimented on their efforts in this direction.
Someone else who has spent many hours in recent months in the furtherance and
improvement of the League is Kevan Mayoh from Kearsley, who has been diligently
and painstakingly unearthing all the facts and figures that formulate a complete
statistical survey of the Bolton League since its inception in 1930. This labour
of love has now been completed, and will in future be a valuable source of
reference to anyone wishing to make use of it.
Finally, my annual vote of thanks to all those without whom the League could
not, and would not, function as it does. To the ladies, committee-men and
groundsmen at the clubs; to the local press, which has done us proud in recent
years; to the umpires and scorers; and to all my fellow club and League
officials. To all of you, a very sincere thank you, offered in the hope that you
may get out of the gameas much as you put in. Last year, my closing words to
this article were as follows: "1984 promises to be a momentous year in our
history. May the sun shine on it". It was, and it did! Dare we hope for a repeat
performance in 1985?