By Peter Stafford (March 1991) Back
THE countdown to any new Bolton League season is invariably a time for rumour and gossip, guesswork and forecast, fact and fantasy. But as the early months of 1990 gave way to March and April, the League's grapevine was fairly shaking with speculation, most of which concerned itself with Egerton. And hardly surprising! During the days leading up to the first match the club's officials had supervised the completion of their sumptuous new dressing rooms, an achievement which had been complemented by the arrival of half a dozen fine new players with which to fill them.
Mike Bennison, Raddi Patel and Scott Prestwidge had been acquired. Paul Tebay, David Wallwork and Ian Taylor had "come home", and these six, when added to skipper Keith Hornby, the returning Brad Bretland and wicket-keeper Mark Wallwork, provided a show of strength that promoted no lack of apprehension around the rest of the League. And when, after five games, they had clocked up an average weekly score of 220 for 4, and had accumulated 27 points in the bank, things were beginning to look ominous. But even figures like these hadn't been enough to put them on top of the table.
Kearsley, at the same stage, were riding even higher on a one hundred per cent record. Powell and Holmes had already taken 32 wickets, Glen Hughes had passed the 200 mark and, ironically for Egerton, Clive Varley, who played at Longworth Road in 1989, had two half centuries in his 170 runs.
Then, in late-May and early June, Egerton hit a bad patch, failing to win any of their next four games. If any one team could be said to have dented the hopes of Hornby's side in 1990, then that team would have to be Greenmount who, on May 19th, had inflicted the first of four defeats on Egerton, two in the League and one each in the Hamer and Jubilee cup competitions.
Meanwhile Kearsley cruised serenely on. Varley hit his maiden century in a crushing win over Heaton, Astley Bridge were beaten by ten wickets, and when Farnworth Social Circle were defeated by one run in what, for both sets of supporters had to he the most exciting game of the season, Kearsley had reached the halfway stage with a clear 8-point lead over Egerton, Circle and Tonge, their closest rivals. Including the Hamer Cup, ten of their fifteen matches had been won, the only blemish having been a 15-run defeat at Egerton which had helped keep the title-race open.
During the second half the same three clubs hung on as main challengers, and on Hamer Cup Final eve Kearsley gave them renewed hope when they lost badly to Farnworth. The gap at the top was reduced to a mere three points, but from that moment on, Kearsley never faltered, and when, on August 25th, they gained their revenge over Egerton, only
one point was required from the final two matches to ensure a sixth championship title for the Springfield Road club.
In the end, that was all they did get out of the games against Horwich and Social Circle. The necessary point came at Horwich and then, saving the worst until last, the final day of the season saw Kearsley bundled out for 55 by Coppin, Eckersley and Nuttall, a result which ensured Circle a place in the 1991 Lancashire K.O. Trophy.
But it had been a deserved success for Craig Lavelle's side. Only two games had been lost en route for the title, and of the nineteen occasions on which they came out of the game with more points than their opponents, the successes were shared evenly between batsmen and bowlers.
As was the case with Walkden in 1989 Kearsley's choice of professional last season was an inspired one. Not only because of the thousand runs scored by Glen Hughes, but also for the enthusiasm and team-spirit that he engendered throughout the season. He was well supported by Ian Hoffinann, who hit over 700 runs, and by Clive Varley, who enjoyed his best-ever Bolton League season with the bat.
Powell and Davies each added another 400, and if Craig Lavelle's 455 was a bit below par for such a good player, he had the small consolation of a share in the League Catching Prize and the somewhat greater one of leading his side to the title.
As a pair of opening bowlers, Barry Holmes and Dick Powell were superb, sharing 152 wickets almost equally at a remarkable low average, whilst Jim Berry's 33 were important, and just as cheaply obtained. Steve Lucas had a fine season behind the wicket, standing up to Powell and Holmes for much of the time, and young Ratledge showed a lot of promise late in the season. If, as seems likely, Paul Berry returns after his year at Northants, one wonders who, in 1991, is going to stop this very talented side. But then, of course, that's precisely what everyone was saying about Egerton, this time last year!
Farnworth had been another much-fancied team at the start of the season, largely on account of the fact that their West Indian pair, Kirton and Drake, had shared 168 wickets the previous year. But in 1990 that figure fell by more than fifty, and with the hugely-talented John Crawley missing more games than his club would have wanted, they eventually ended the season just below halfway.
In the event it was Tonge who made most progress in terms of league position, cup success and general recovery of self-esteem. Their Hamer Cup win is described later, but after finishing 1989 next to the bottom of the table, their rise to third place came as something of a revelation. They, too, had made what turned out to be an astute professional signing. Steve Dublin took 88 wickets, more than anyone else in the League, and hit the ball vast distances during his accumulation of 842 runs. Kim Evetts' 61 wickets and 827 runs constituted a fine season's work, but the club's and,
indeed, the League's Player-of-the-Year was the newly-arrived Kevin Hayes, the former Lancashire batsman, whose 1406 runs re-wrote the book as regards amateur batting records. The fact that this total contained no centuries speaks volumes for a consistency which brought 16 halfcenturies in League and Cup matches. Eight of them came in his final ten innings of the season, during which he hit 606 runs, surely a sequence unparalleled in the League's history. Certainly never before have three batsmen from one club aggregated 3,000 runs, as did Hayes, Dublin and Evetts last year. Paul Tebay, too, enjoyed a fine season. After having narrowly missed the thousand-run mark on a couple of previous occasions, he finally achieved that particular ambition in 1990. In all, six batsmen made it to four figures, the three already mentioned together with Greenmount's Wayne Phillips, Grant Long of Horwich and Bernard Reidy, who was awarded the Professional's Prize for the second consecutive year. Another individual who managed a repeat of 1989 was leading wicketkeeper Jon Partington, whilst David Wallwork just pipped Berry Holmes for the League Bowling Prize.
At second team level there was no shortage of noteworthy individual and team performances. 1 have often wondered why there is no
Player-of-the-Year award in second eleven cricket. Had there been such a prize on offer, then Astley Bridge's Nick Swift would have been a very strong contender indeed.
In spite of having made seven first-team appearances, he still managed to take 99 wickets in League and Cup games, just one short of the feat last achieved in second team cricket by Bradshaw's David Farnworth 16 years ago.
Roy Costello received an award from his club, Little Lever on the occasion of his 10th century for the club, whilst Greg Salt and Alan Bradbury each exceeded 700 runs for Eagley and Tonge respectively. But the League's highest scorer was Steve Dickinson of Egerton, who just topped the 800 mark, which leaves one wondering how such a promising young player is to be given his chance at senior level with so much batting talent available at the club.
Tonge's second team bowlers did it again! Their four leading wickettakers, Foster, Blinkhorn, Bailey and Sutelifre took between them, an astonishing 218 wickets at a joint average of 12. 5. But this time it wasn't to bring them any success in the honours list. After an exciting race towards the championship which culminated in a final day on which any of three clubs could have taken the title, they had to be content to share the runners-up spot with Astley Bridge, a point behind Greenmount. The champions' success was one in which each member of the side played his part, with Alan Key and Phil Riley leading the way in terms of runs and wickets respectively, whilst Phil Neville's all-round contributions proved yet another vindication of the League's youth policy.
Tonge travelled to Astley Bridge for the Birtwistle Cup Final and, at the tea interval, must have been looking forward to a fourth success in the competition. The home side had been bowled out for 92, of which Simon Quigley had hit 47, and Steve Blinkhorn's 6 for 28 had put him in pole position for a unique double, that of Hamer and Birtwistle Cup Final Manof-the-Match awards in the same season. But in the end his fine bowling proved not enough. In spite of Steve Goodram's 30, Tonge's wickets fell steadily, and after a nerve-racking last-wicket stand of 17 from Mark Hood and Clive Jones, the last wicket fell ten runs short of the target. Brian Quigley had willed his team to an improbable victory, and that man Nick Swift was selected, narrowly ahead of Simon Quigley, one assumes, as Man-of-the-Match for his incisive and decisive 6 for 34.
The Hamer Cup competition began with a minor surprise at Farnworth, where the home side was put out by Bradshaw. In the absence of Kirton, Steve Titchard was Farnworth's professional, and his 66 constituted the lion's share of his side's all-out 164. Bradshaw's four-wicket win came with eight balls to spare, thanks largely to a half-century from David Morris. Elsewhere there were easy wins for Wa11den at Astley Bridge and for Egerton at Piggott Park. Eagley fought hard to get back into the tie after Horwich had hit 215, but despite 54 from Ian Wilcox they fell 20 runs short. Australians Glen Hughes and Duggie
Thomkins each hit fifties in Kearsley's 12-run win over Little Lever, whilst, at Tonge, the home side went through at the expense of Westhoughton after a game which produced 334 runs but, oddly enough, only one score exceeding 30, Estwick's 34, however, was not enough as his side went out by eight runs in an exciting finish. By far the best bowling figures on a batsman's day were those of Ian Taylor, who took 7 for 53 for Egerton against Farnworth Social Circle.
Round Two threw up an exact repeat of the previous season when Kearsley were beaten at the same stage at Walkden. This time the result was reversed, and the holders were out. Glen Hughes' 86 was an innings worth going a long way to see, and he was well backed up by
Hoffmann and Stephen Davies, each of whom just missed out on a half-century. 237 was always going to be a difficult target, and only a fine 78 from Bernard Reidy kept Walkden in the game for any length of time. At the end, 75 runs separated the two sides, and a happy Jim, Berry, with 5 for 39 against his old club, had produced one of the best two bowling performances of the round. The other was David Wallwork's 5 for 31 against Greenmount, who were bowled out for 157, a total that shouldn't have presented Egerton with much of a problem. But for once none of the batsmen could get going. David Mason and Terry Stewart kept tight control on things, and Greenmount had struck Egerton's 1990 aspirations a second mortal blow.
For the winners, Wayne Phillips had hit an undefeated 77. Ronnie Irani's 75 for Heaton was not enough to save his side from defeat at
Bradshaw, for whom Cole and Johnson's first wicket stand was decisive. Similarly Grant Long's unbeaten 84 for Horwich was in vain. Their innings came to an end for 210 at Tonge, and Hayes, Evetts, Kerr and Dublin each made runs as Tonge moved to a 7-wicket win. It had been a day upon which the professionals had earned their money. The seven who batted had, between them, hit 460 runs at an average of 92.
For the semi-finals, Greenmount were drawn to visit Bradshaw, whilst Kearsley and Tonge, possibly the two favourites, were to meet at Springfield Road. Coincidentally, both matches ended with very similar scorelines. Tonge and Greenmount, batting first, each just exceeded the 200 mark. Their opponents, sadly for them, did not. At Bradshaw the home team, batting second, seemed to have the match under control when, with Young and Moss at the wicket, they needed just 15 from five overs with five wickets still standing. But by this stage the light was far from good, and with rain falling, Foy and Mark Stewart shot away the remainder of Bradshaw's batting to put Greenmount into their second Hamer Cup Final. The game had been full of good cricket. Brian Cole's 59, the batting and bowling of the two Morris's, Chadwick and Foy's stand which took Greenmount from doubt to respectability, Andy Williams' innings, but above all, two catches in the outfield, one by Stuart Adams, and an even better one by Dave Mason in the gloom, which went a long way towards winning the game for his side.
Over at Kearsley, Kevin Hayes' 77 had put Tonge into a very strong position, and thanks to support from Dublin, Rogers and Dimarcello, they were able to close their innings at a satisfactory 213 for 7. Powell and
Hoffmann went cheaply, but as Hughes and Davies were starting to effect a recovery, a storm caused the tie to be abandoned until the following evening. So long as Hughes survived, Kearsley were in control, but when he went for 64, the game swung Tonge's way. Craig Lavelle, having come in at five, attempted to take over Hughes' role, knowing that if there was to be a Kearsley match-winner, it had to he him. It was a valiant effort, but the Kearsley reply was always that 20 or so behind the required rate, and when Lavelle went for 58, it was virtually all over. Dublin had bowled unchanged and well, and his figures of 5 for 84 from 25 overs were matchwinning ones.
Hamer Cup Finals during the 1980s have been equally divided between the nail-biting and the fairly mundane. In 1990, sadly, it was the turn of the latter. Greenmount, batting first, made an excellent start though. They must have realised that without the bowling of the two Stewarts, a total of 200-plus was needed if Hayes and Co were to be put under any real pressure, and 68 for 0 from 18 overs was a perfect springboard
for just such a score.
The turning point of the innings came with the introduction of Steve Blinkliorn to the attack. He it was who got rid of Phillips and Williams,
the batsmen responsible for the encouraging start, and when he had John Ashworth caught behind for nought, the writing was on the wall for all to see. Dublin, having already disposed of Chadwick, then took the next five wickets as Greenmount, unable to produce the required rescue act, meekly folded for 142. Whilst Dublin's final figures of 6 for 46 from 25 overs were impressive and, indeed, match-winning yet again, one could appreciate Blinkhorn's selection as Man-of-the-Match. When Greenmount were threatening to take control in the face of everything Dublin and Evetts had to offer, it was the young second team bowler who, by dismissing the three best players in the order, had brought Tonge back into a position from which they could start thinking about winning the game.
And this they did without too many alarms. Hayes and Jason Kerr added 77 for the first wicket, and from there it was almost all plain sailing. I say "almost" because when a couple of wickets fell in the 90s, one of them Dublin's, a few worries may well have crept into one or two Tonge minds. But Mick Rogers and Kim Evetts dispelled any such doubts, saw their side home, and Hamer Cup celebrations began at the Castle Hill club for the fourth time in its history. Dave Mason, with 2 for 27 from his 15 overs, had bowled beautifully and was, along with his professional, unfortunate to finish on the losing side.
For the fifth consecutive year the Final had been blessed with good weather, and the Bradshaw officials were to be congratulated for having stage-managed the match so admirably at such short notice. On the field, it had followed the pattern of each of the seven Finals to have featured Tonge, in that they have all been won, or lost, with consummate ease!
The Inter-League season, as it concerned the Bolton League, was very brief and very wet! In Round One of the Lancs Inter-League KO Trophy, we were drawn at home to the Northern League and, on one of the season's wettest days, a tie which had promised so much was doomed to become a ten-over slog. Rather surprisingly, the visitors, on winning the toss, chose to bat first, and there followed much rubbing of hands in the Bolton camp. The hand-rubbing became less evident as the visitors thumped and whacked their way to 90 for V Not surprisingly, the Bolton League innings started with not a fielder within conversing distance of the square, but with too many batsmen tempted into the dangerous option of attempting to win the game by big hitting, things went from bad to worse, and the innings ended 24 runs short.
One of the many troubles about a 60-ball innings is that there is no time allowed for
manoeuverability of tactics. You choose your course, and have to stick to it. They chose right, we chose wrong, and, on the day, they were the better side under the existing conditions. Craig Atkins, of
Morecombe, in the 12 balls to which he was limited, took an amazing 6 wickets for 4 runs including a hat-trick. Considering the short space of tie in which it
happened it was probably the best bowling analysis in the history of the world!
The Trinity Cup match played at Green Lane was altogether a happier day for the Bolton League. But once again, the weather played its part, and after rain had twice caused hold-ups during the Association's innings, it was decided during the tea interval that the League required 83 from 37 overs to win the game, rather than the 112 which would have been the target in the normal way of things.
Of the home batsmen, only Little Hulton's Andy Mawson caused any real problems, hitting 41 as the Association subsided to 111 all out. Mason was the League's best bowler, taking 3 for 19 from his ten overs, whilst Holmes bowled a similar number for just eight runs. A half-century opening stand between Paul Tebay and Keyin Hayes ensured that the League's task, achieved with nine wickets and seven overs to spare, was a simple one. A three-match gap is now the League's advantage in the series, a far cry from the position at the beginning of the 1980s, when the Association led by seven matches to three.
In such a truncated inter-league season, one's sympathies go to the captain and his side, who were denied the enjoyment of being fully tested under normal conditions, and even more so to the Little Lever and Bolton clubs who went to so much trouble and received so little in return. Yet again it had been made apparent to us all that bad weather and good cricket can never go hand in hand, play around with the rules how you will!
Greenmount came to within one game of the Lancashire KO Final when, after a good run in the competition, they went out to Blackpool in a Stanley Park semi-final which was dominated by the talents of the home professional, Jack Simmons. Going in at the fall of an early wicket Simmons batted superbly, and his 86 set up a total of 204 which was always going to take a lot of getting in the face of Blackpool's inter-league bowlers. By the time Simmons came on, the game was almost beyond Greenmount, and his 4 for 33 merely underlined his value to a Blackpool side which went on to win the trophy at Old Trafford in September.
Greenmount had started their bid with a one-sided match against Feniscowles, after which the toss of a coin at Sefton saw them safely into Round Three. Now they travelled to Daisy Hill for an evening match which almost slid out of their grasp when, after the Association side had been contained for most of the innings, 61 runs came from the last five overs. Buckley's unbeaten 47 was largely responsible for a final total of 184 for 8. But Chadwick (77) and Phillips (58) came to the rescue with a
second wicket stand of 125, and Greenmount were through to the quarter-finals. Here they were drawn away to Vickers SC, but due to adverse weather the match was switched to Barrow CC. That Vickers were kept down to 146 for 6 was largely due to a fine spell of bowling from Terry Stewart, who bowled his eight overs in the middle of the innings and took two wickets for only 12 runs. Again Phillips obliged with a half-century, and when rain
brought matters to a halt, Greenmount, needing only another ten runs from ten overs, with eight wickets in hand, were declared the winners on the faster run-rate.
Farnworth's re-entry. into the competition was a sad affair. After a Preliminary Round walkover against Stackateads, they went out to Deane & Derby in one of the biggest shocks in the whole competition. After a disastrous start to the innings, Lee Sutton's undefeated 60 pulled his side round to a still modest 136 for 7 at the close. Deane & Derby, with victory in their sights, applied themselves well, and the winning runs came with 16 balls remaining.
The great irony for Farnworth was that two of the main causes of their downfall were the bowling of Rashid Patel, who took three early vital wickets, and the batting of Abdul Adat, whose 36 held the visitors' innings together. The irony, of course, lay in the fact that both were ex-Farnworth players!
Walkden's exit from the competition was equally galling, though for a different reason. After having easily beaten Barrow, thanks to big scores from Tony Keays and Bernard Reidy, they were drawn at home to Middleton in Round Two. The records will show that they went out on the toss of a coin, but there was more to it than that. When the toss was made, Middleton had been bowled out for under a hundred, only for rain to cause an abandonment at that particular juncture, and, after Walkden's various offers of alternative dates had been refused, they left the competition amidst a lot of local sympathy and general acrimony.
The League's fourth representative, Westhoughton, bowed out in the same round to Liverpool, for whom Bradshaw's former professional, Geoff Blackburn, hit a century. Graham Hill's 65, supported by a joint 64 from Woods and Estwick, had seen the
Tyldesleys club to 183 for 7, but Blackburn's complete domination after the interval saw his side home by six wickets. Westhoughton had passed through the first round with some ease against Whalley. Having dismissed the Ribblesdale League team for exactly 100, Steve Woods' 51 not out was the main contribution to a ninewicket win.
Six clubs entered the Cockspur NCA Trophy, and of these Eagley, who had such little joy in the domestic competitions, was the only club to reach the third round. Having overcome Bolton in Round One, thanks to a century opening stand between Nigel Franklyn (85) and Greg Salt (51), it was Franklyn again whose 69 runs were largely responsible for Barnoldswick's defeat in Round Two. They finally went down to Warrington NT, who sneaked through with their last pair at the wicket after runs from Firth, Wilcox and Franklyn again had seen Eagley to 171 for 7.
After having beaten Wavertree, Bradshaw were unlucky to lose to Fleetwood when David Senior's superb 2nd Round century levelled the scores at 253 apiece, only for the seaside club to go through having lost
fewer wickets. Egerton lost interest at the same stage, losing to Leyland after having beaten Roe Green, whereas Kearsley, easy winners over neighbouring Clifton thanks to Lavelle's unbeaten 50, were forced to pull out of the competition due to a lack of free Sundays. Tony Settle's 90 was too much for Skipton in Round One, but at the second attempt Little Lever went out to Holnifirth in spite of Simon Anderton's 82. Westhoughton's 1990 Cockspur ambitions ended at Macclesfield when they became the third Bolton League side to be forced into a toss-up situation. This was doubly sad as, in Round One, they had produced arguably their best batting performance of the season in beating Widnes. Chasing a target of 243, Nigel Heaton hit a magnificent 107, and with Ian Pilkington adding 58, Westhoughton got home with four wickets and four balls to spare.
Egerton ruled indoors, winning the Anthony Axford Indoor Trophy for the first time. In the first round they hit the highest score of this year's competition, 168 against Walkden, and followed that with wins over Astley Bridge, Horwich, and, in the Final, Bradshaw, who were beaten by 45 runs. Egerton also hit the highest total in the Lancashire Finals, an impressive 161 for 1, in beating Wigan Unionists. But they they came to grief in the semi-final, in which Irlam had two wickets to spare as the Longworth Road club's run came to an end.
Keith Homby's side also reached Jubilee Finals day along with Kearsley, Horwich and Greenmount. In the first of the two semi-finals Horwich overtook Kearsley's 94 for 5 with just one ball remaining, whilst in the second, Egerton were lined up for a fourth possible defeat by the Brandlesholme Road team. Despite good scores from Bennison and Hornby, this duly happened as Greenmount hurried to 145 for 6 in just 17V2 overs, with Andy Williams' 58 the top score. In the Final, Horwich were never a match for Greenmount. After restricting their opponents to 116 for 6 in 20 overs, with Darren Foy's five producing 3 for 16, Greenmount's five-wicket win came with four overs to spare, with batsman of the day Andy Williams adding his second half-century.
In a season during which 41 matches produced in excess of 400 runs, there were batting highlights sprinkled fairly liberally throughout. On July 31st Kearsley's Glen Hughes (153) and Ian Hoffinan (98), both not out, came close to the League record partnership during their side's 271 for 2 against Tonge. The previous Saturday Farnworth Social Circle's batsmen had broken a 74-year-old club record when half-centuries from Patman, Lord, Edwards and Hayes had helped amass 283 for 4 against Astley Bridge. A month later Wayne Phillips and John Ashworth provided the only 1990 example of two centuries in one innings as Greenmount beat Little Lever by eight wickets, but back in early May, Tonge and Bradshaw had outstripped everyone when their joint 557 runs in the game at the Rigbys came to within 23 of the League aggregate record.
Congratulations are due to Farnworth's Ernie Hall, who was deservedly presented with the Hubert Pendlebury Memorial Award at the League Dinner in November. Over the years the work he has achieved on his club's behalf has been monumental and, along with his son, he has been, and is, a credit to the League. And lastly, our usual and very heartfelt thanks to everyone whose money, commitment, hard work and time contributed so much in so many different ways to the well-being of the Fort Sterling Bolton League during the past twelve months.