By Peter Stafford (March 2002) Back
Over the years, in common with most would-be forecasters of winners and losers in local cricket, 1 have discovered that making predictions is a far from easy business. Indeed, not long ago 1 went into print with the names of the winners of the Hamer Cup quarter-finals, and scored nought out of four!
So perhaps I may be allowed a certain measure of self-satisfaction when I note that, in Looking Back last year, I wrote that 'surely the side he (Mike Bennison) will lead into the new season will provide the kind of consistent solidity necessary to put in a bid for some silverware.' Mind you, silverware would have been very low on
Walkden's agenda after five programmes had been completed. The side stood fourth from the bottom without a win to their name, whilst an important game against major rivals Kearsley had been lost. It was to be their only league defeat of the season as things turned out, but no-one could see so far into the future, and all the title-talk at that stage was of Kearsley, who were ploughing their merry way through an astonishing run of 17 consecutive wins in all competitions.
Their wonderful sequence of ten straight league victories, however, ended traumatically on June 30th when, 41 points ahead of Westhoughton, their closest rivals, they were bowled out at Springfield Road for 46 by lan Taylor and Dion
Taljard. On the same day Walkden, who had by now rediscovered the winning habit, hit 271 for 3 against Heaton. Throughout July Mike Bennison's side maintained that kind of form, beating Kearsley, Tonge and Westhoughton, and moved to the top of the table for the first time on July 28th, thanks largely to Matt Parkinson's fine innings against Kearsley.
From that point on, it was nail-biting stuff as WaIkden and Kearsley stayed ahead of the pack, and when the final day of the season arrived they were the only two realistic contenders, with Westhoughton still in the frame, but only mathematically. It was to be a re-run of June 30th, and with Kearsley looking for a measure of revenge at Tonge,
Walkden's visit to Heaton appeared, on paper at least, to be the simpler of the two tasks. Easy wins on paper, however, have a a nasty habit of turning into nightmares on grass, and at 54 for 6, and then 75 for 7, Walkden could have been excused for thinking in terms of banana skins rather than championship champagne.
At this point Matt Parkinson stepped into the breach, much as he had done earlier in the season against Kearsley, and his undefeated 53 gave respectability to the total and a fighting chance to his bowlers. Indeed, when Heaton had collapsed to 25 for 5, the game, and the title, seemed to be there for the taking, but now John Whittle and Warwick Milne dropped
anchor, and it wasn't until the 37th over of the innings that Bernard Reidy's double-wicket maiden gave relief to his team-mates that was almost tangible. Two further victims to the left-armer, who ended with 4 for 5 from nine overs, were followed by the final wicket when Watkinson bowled Booth, and it was time for the League Chairman to present the Warburton Cup to Mike Bennison, coincidentally on almost the same spot where Simon Thomson had received it 12 months previously. Westhoughton's faint hopes had been extinguished by a ten-run defeat at the hands of Egerton, but Kearsley, thanks to Ratledge and the Whittles, had won at Tonge with an over to spare, leaving them eight points adrift of their championship successors.
No one could seriously argue with Walkden's right to the title. Under Mike Bennison's shrewd leadership they had lost only one league game throughout the season, and whilst the majority of the side's wins and points had been collected by those of whom it could reasonably be expected, there had been times when the responsibility was thrust upon the 'supporting cast', notably against Kearsley at home and at Heaton in the title-clinching match. On the two occasions in question Stephen Higson and John Hinks respectively had produced what was required to keep the championship hopes very much alive.
Although hampered by a damaged off-spinning finger for much of the season, Mike Watkinson still managed 30 relatively cheap wickets, whilst one more decent innings would have hoisted him over the 1,000-run mark. He and David Smith formed an ideal opening partnership in a season during which the pair hit the two highest individual scores in the League. Matt Parkinson reserved his most productive innings for the big occasion, and deservedly won the League Batting Prize. Skipper Bennison's 440 was, for such a good player, below par, but he would have been more than adequately compensated, by the biggest prize of all at the end of the campaign.
In the field, wicket-keeper Andy Kay had a fine season. On the occasions on which 1 saw him 1 was more than impressed by his work when standing up to Reidy. Phil Ingram took an important 44 wickets and John Smith with 62 came to within touching distance of the club's 63-year-old amateur bowling record for the umpteenth time! Bernard Reidy's 56 wickets came at less than ten runs apiece and assured him of the League Bowling Prize for the second time. He also shared the Catching Prize with Grant Long, thanks to a near record-breaking 19 victims. Since first arriving at the Oval in 1989, Bernard Reidy has been a hugely influential figure, having collected two Professional's Prizes to add to the one he won at Kearsley, two League Bowling Awards, the first 1,000 run/100 wicket-double in the League's history, two league titles and a Hamer Cup, and the club's professional batting record. No one at Walkden in 2001 was more deserving of this latest championship success.
Four second-half defeats cost Kearsley dear in their bid to retain the title. After losing to Westhoughton, Horwich and
Walkden, they did manage to climb back to top spot, but the one-wicket stumble at the hands of Farnworth Social Circle proved to be the final nail in the Springfield Road coffin. They won each of their last three games, but by then it was a case of too little, too late.
Mel Whittle, Darran Foy and Fazal took a combined 173 wickets, all of them at little cost. Fourteen sides were bowled out, nine of them for less than a hundred, and therein lay Kearsley's strength, especially during the seemingly endless stream of victories early on in the season. They could have done without Fazal's 11 absences, for even though his various replacements didn't let the club down, the balance and consistency of a side can suffer. Apart from which, any bowler capable of taking 65 wickets at eight runs apiece, as Fazal did, is a major loss when unavailable. Whilst none of the batsmen managed to score 500 runs, Ratledge, Davies, Foy, Thornson and Tom Whittle hit a joint thousand, whilst Jordan Thornley, who averaged over 35, gave clear notice of a very bright future.
A superb run in the National Knock-out competition saw the club win their group before losing out to Brarnhall, and that was enough to lift
Kearsley to 15th position in the list of English clubs based on their various success rates in the N.K.O. since it began over 30 years ago.
Westhoughton made their customary bid for honours, and featured in the top three of every league table printed. Brad White was outstanding, breaking the club's professional record with 1,177 runs, and he became the third player from the TyIdesleys after Dick Pollard and Arthur Sutton to be awarded the Professional's Prize. Steve Parker and Mike Crookson were the outstanding amateurs, with 819 runs and 76 cheap wickets respectively. lan Pilkington and Rick Parker scored runs, as did Alan Gaskell on his welcome return to the League, whilst Darren Preston took 63 wickets and Mubarak Patel (36) finished commendably high up the bowling averages in his first full season at senior level. All the Westhoughton bowlers were well backed-up by Mark Atherton who won the League Wicket-keeping Prize.
Elsewhere, Tonge were always a threat in a year which culminated so memorably for them at Old Trafford, of which more later. Dion
Taljard took 88 wickets, thus breaking a bowling record which had stood for 70 years. Ian Taylor took another 66 at a slightly better average, and Adil Nisar ended the season a mere 75 runs short of a thousand. In terms of progress Astley Bridge could lay some claim to having been the team of the year. They rose from bottom place without a win in 2000 to a final sixth position which booked a place for them in the 2002 Thwaites LCB competition. Dheeraj jadhav hit 867 runs, most of which were worth going a long way to see. Tim Barry, Paul Stafford and Anthony Clegg were valuable newcomers,
William Halton's off-spin came on in leaps and bounds, as did the cricket played by Danny Guest and Simon Entwistle, and the whole thing was supervised in his own inimitable fashion by skipper Paul Tebay, who gave much to the side both in terms of captaincy and a stiffening of the middle order. Sajid Mahmood's all-round cricket will be missed. He took 51 wickets and has shown at inter-league, Federation and county level that his batting would almost certainly benefit were he to be given a little more responsibility.
On the professional front, lan Mitchell of Eagley and Greenmount's Saeed Anwar each achieved the 1,000-run target, whilst David White couldn't have been far behind his Westhoughton namesake in the Professional's Prize stakes, with 808 runs and 80 wickets to his credit. Narendra Hirwani took 88 wickets for Heaton having missed the first couple of games, and will doubtless take more after a season's experience in the League.
If I were to mention in detail all the pro's who appeared at some stage or other during 2001, then this book would begin to assume 'War and Peace' proportions! Suffice it to say that there were 58 in all, of varying degrees of ability, roughly the same number who were to be seen during the first ten years of the League's history! Three who are worthy of mention were Aamir Sohail, who played briefly at Egerton and looked what he is, a world-class all-rounder, Imran Javed, Bradshaw's pro for the majority of their matches, scoring 389 runs in 13 innings, and Ricardo Powell, who joined Farnworth Social Circle in mid-June and contributed 582 runs and 49 wickets during the remainder of the season.
Circle and Egerton between them used 20 different professionals, which must constitute some bizarre kind of world record, and it would be interesting to speculate on what Mahendra Nagamootoo's final bowling figures would have been had he finished the year at Piggott Park, when one considers that he took 15 wickets at seven apiece in the 68 overs he sent down during his brief stay.
With regard to the amateurs ... sorry, I'll rephrase that! With regard to those players whose initials appear in front of their surnames, there were many who enjoyed excellent seasons, several of whom I've already mentioned. Of the remainder, perhaps pride of place should go to Eagley's Shahid Mahboob, who was voted Player-of-the-Year by his opponents, and that award, simply it comes from one's peers, has to be the ultimate accolade. Mabs took 99 wickets (very sensible that - so many have taken a hundred or more, but everyone remembers 99!) and hit 448 runs. 23 of his wickets came in Eagley's four Hamer Cup-ties, which did no harm at all to the Dunscar club's prospects in that particular competition.
Most of the others were the usual suspects. Grant Long was, as ever, a tower of strength at Horwich as captain, all-rounder (730 and 35) and catcher-in-chief, and he is to be congratulated for having enough faith in young, back-of-the-hand spin to give Nick Woods the amount of bowling
he needs to maintain his progress in the game. Nick, voted young Playerof-the-Year, is one of our more valuable assets, as was his award-winning predecessor, Tim Rees who, sadly, has moved into another league.
Mark Stewart, one of the seven bowlers to exceed 400 overs in the season, took 76 wickets, as well as finding a few spare moments to hit the year's fastest 50, whilst Tim Barrow's 43 cheap wickets, which took him above all the amateurs in the averages other than Reidy and Foy, included the season's only 9-for, achieved against Kearsley in the match which ended their title hopes. Rick Northrop had a memorable season with over 600 runs and 30 victims, and Mike Ward, Richard Hope and David Morris also exceeded 600 runs for their respective clubs.
Round One of the Hamer Cup competition was blessed with decent weather, and all of the six ties were thankfully completed on the same day that they started, something of an event in recent seasons. Five of the sides that won did so batting first, the exception being Westhoughton, who successfully chased 184 against Tonge. They got home by five
wickets. thanks largely to an unbeaten 88 from Brad White. The shock of the round occurred at Eagley, where the home side could only manage an all-out 130 against Walkden, who then somehow contrived to lose by 20 runs. No batsman made any runs worth talking about, and Mahboob's 5 for 47 proved the difference between the two teams. In a similar kind of game at Kearsley the home side owed a lot to Darron Foy, whose 59 out of 132 kept them in the game. Fazal's 7 for 41 was then too good for Bradshaw, for whom an undefeated 36 from Arnjad Butt was the only innings of substance.
Former Eagley pro Pieter Strydorn was Farnworth Social Circle's match winner at Heaton with an all-round performance of 31 and 5 for 44. Circle's 165 for 8 was 22 too many for the home side, whose top scorer with 38 was their excellent wicketkeeper, Simon Booth. Over at Horwich another fine young 'keeper,
Jimmy Ainscough, had a good day, this time with the gloves. Jimmy had five victims as Little Lever capitulated to 151 in the face of Horwich's 211 for 7. White and Long had ensured a decent total with a big 2nd-wicket stand, but whilst Little Lever's main batsmen Rayment, Baldwin and Martin, all got a start, none of them could make the major impact required as White took 6 for 70. In the other game at Sharples Park,
Jadhav (42) and Tim Barry (93) starred in Astley Bridge's 193 for 4, after which Nigel Franklyn's 34 amounted to more than half of Greenmount's runs from the bat as Sajid Mahmood (6 for 34) bowled them out for 84.
Egerton sprang the surprise of Round Two, beating Kearsley at home in a tie in which the team scores echoed almost exactly those achieved in Eagley's unexpected win in Round One. Mike Ward (33) and skipper Nigel Partington (29) scored around half their side's 128 runs, although during the tea-interval neither would probably have thought that
his innings would be of much significance in the general scheme of things. In the event,
however, they were, as Ainsworth and Cunliffe each took three wickets in a reply that basically consisted of two stands, 60 between Foy and Monks for the 5th-wicket, and 25 added by Thornley and Pellowe for the last. In between, very little, and Egerton went through by 15 runs.
At Astley Bridge the home side collapsed to Mahboob who this time took 7 for 59 out of 105, a total that Eagley passed for the loss of only three wickets thanks to a 3rd-wicket stand between Mitchell and Chris Lord. Horwich's interest came to an end at Westhoughton where Alan Gaskell's 82 helped the home tearn up to 215 for 8. Grant Long's 61 was the only contribution of any consequence as Preston, Crookson, White and Patel shared the wickets in a 60-run win.
The remaining tie, a local derby contested by the two Farnworth sides, was delayed for a fortnight due to the weather, and produced Something of a turn-up as bottom of the table Farnworth cruised to a 108-run win over their neighbours. The success was almost entirely a two-man affair as Lee Childs (87 and 5 for 22) and Dave Leonard (66 and 3 for 27) provided the performances to which Christian Walsh's side had no real answers. 230 for 8 against 122 was the eventual outcome, taking Farnworth through to a home semi-final against Westhoughton.
In fact, both serni-finals turned out to be fairly one-sided contests. At Bridgeman Park Westhoughton's first three batsmen, White, Steve Parker and Pilkington each hit half-centuries and a daunting 242 was Farnworth's target. Patel took three early wickets, including those of Childs and Leonard, and with the tie now out of reach, Crookson cleaned up as the home side fell 98 runs short. Egerton had South African Dave Callaghan on professional duty for their derby at Dunscar, where Eagley's first innings total of 185 for 9 was a real team effort. McDermott, Mitchell, Mahboob, Seddon and Wallwork all contributed significantly, and only Chris Tye with 3 for 35 made any kind of impression with the ball. Callaghan (58) and Ward (24) put the visitors in with a chance, but once their 2nd wicket stand was broken, little stood in Eagley's way with no other Egerton batsman capable of double figures. 64 runs was the winning margin, and yet again Mahboob left his imprint on the tie, this time with 7 for 67.
The Final, staged at Egerton, was a re-run of that of 1979 between the same two clubs, and this one followed much the same pattern. Westhoughton batted first, didn't get enough runs, but then fought back to put themselves in a winning position, only for one batsman to have the final say and win the game for Eagley. Mahboob struck the first blow when he bowled Steve Parker in the first over, after which things went from bad to worse. 7 for 2 became 23 for 4, and only a stand of 31 between Paul Atherton and Gaskell saved their side from total humiliation. At 67 for 5 came a prolonged break for rain, after which Westhoughton's last five wickets could only muster another 18. Martin Seddon took 4 for 5, giving him an overall
9 for 80 during the course of Eagley's four ties, and a good tea-time claim for the Man-of-the-Match award.
Eagley fared no better, however, and when 27 for 2 rapidly turned into 31 for 6, an interesting contest had become a nail-biting one for both sets of supporters. Mahboob hit a quick 15, but at 53 for 9 Eagley's hopes really seemed to have hit rock bottom. It was at this point that Tim Wallwork took control. Steve Foster isn't the worst No. 11 in the world, and, as Wallwork gradually began to narrow the gap, he shored things up at the other end. One chance to gully went begging, but then Wallwork went on the attack. A superb straight six off Patel - a pulled four at the other end - 18 runs had come from two overs - and suddenly, unbelievably, Eagley were home and dry. If ever a bowler didn't deserve to finish a cup final on the losing side it was Mike Crookson, who had bowled beautifully to take 5 for 23 from his 18 overs, but it was Tim Wallwork who took the honours, the game, and the Man-of-the-Match award. His unbeaten 30 was the highest score in a Hamer Cup Final by a Number 10 batsman since 1934, when Billy Lansdale hit an unbeaten 54 for Little Lever when they lost to Kearsley. And to stretch the coincidence even further, it was the first time since that match 67 years ago that a Hamer Cup Final had been won and lost by one wicket. It was also the lowest scoring final since the war, but, as is so often the case with such games, arguably the most exciting. The Egerton club worked wonders on the day in not the easiest of conditions. The crowd was a good one, and if the eventual outcome had left Eagley and their supporters ecstatic, you had to feel for Westhoughton. To lose any game in those kind of circumstances is galling, but to lose a Cup Final like that just doesn't bear thinking about!
Three weeks later Eagley were celebrating again when their 2nd Team collected the Birtwistle Cup at Heaton to complete a memorable double. The Final was an unusual match in that whilst virtually every member of the Eagley side contributed something towards the success with either bat or ball, no one player stood out as Man-of-the-Match. That honour went to Heaton's Phil Hunter, whose 34 kept his team in with a chance until the final moments.
Eagley hit 182 for 9, with Steve Whittaker's late and unbeaten 28 important in the context of the eventual winning margin, and Heaton replied with 170, in which Andy Patterson top-scored with 45, narrowly edging out Mr. Extras, who registered 42!
The 2nd XI Championship was won, and won well, by Astley Bridge, who picked up 411 points, more than any side, Ist Team or 2nd, since the system was changed five years ago. They topped the table from start to finish, with Waikden, Eagley and Tonge their closest rivals. Much was owed to the two Steves, Entwistle and Goodram, and Gary Potts, who between the three of them scored almost 1,700 runs. Having said that, run-scoring
was rarely a problem throughout the order, nine of whose members were good enough to record at least one half century. Skipper Paul Burton led the way with the ball. His 70 wickets, which came at 10 runs apiece, were more than any other 2nd Team bowler could manage, and he deserved his League Bowling Prize.
Elsewhere around the League Little Lever's Gary Pilling was the highest run-scorer with 722, whilst lan Edwards won the Batting Prize and, perhaps more surprisingly, finished in fifth place in the bowling averages! Egerton's Steve Dickinson was the leading all-rounder, making the top ten in both sets of averages with 617 runs and 56 wickets.
Sam Newton of Eagley and Greenmount's Ian Senior won the catching and wicket-keeping awards, respectively. Perhaps the highlight of the 2nd X1 season was the second in the series of inter-league matches against the Central Lancashire League which took place at Middleton and ended in a tie. In the Bolton innings of 209 for 8 Steve Goodram led the way with a fine 79, with good support from Nigel Duxbury, Gary PilIffig and Wayne Green. When the last over of the game began, the home side needed eight runs to win, but could manage only seven, ending on 209 for 7. Kearsley's Chris Lomax was the Bolton League's most economical bowler with a spell of 82-20-1. This series of games, which owes much to the initiative of Ian Senior, will continue into the foreseeable future, and the hopes are that it could develop into a more widespread competition should other leagues show a willingness to join in.
The senior inter-league season produced three excellent wins before a disappointing defeat in the M.E.N. Final took a little of the edge off things. One negative aspect of the matches was that due to the unavailability of players from certain clubs, for one reason or another, the selectors had their hands tied when it came to picking the strongest eleven.
A trip to the Saddleworth League's Greenfield was first on the agenda in Round One of the M.E.N. competition. The Bolton side batted first, and the main feature of their eventual total of 242 for 9 was a match-winning innings of 79 not out from Bradshaw's David Morris. Going in at Number 3, he held things together throughout, sharing in a 4th-wicket stand with Jon Kerrigan who, on his inter-league debut, hit an exhilarating 48 from 59 balls. Towards the end of the innings Sajid Mahmood struck 21 from eight balls to ensure a final total which, even on so small a ground, proved non too difficult to defend. The home team's reply petered out at 184 for 9, with Ian Taylor's 3 for 41 the most productive analysis in terms of wickets, the rest of which were shared more economically by
Taljard, Fearick, Mahmood and Mahboob.
The Northern Premier League, arguably the county's strongest, provided the opposition at Bradshaw in the semi-final. On a miserable day with rain never far away, the home team batted first, and the headline in the
Bolton Evening News, 'Rampant Rayment', just about said it all. In partnerships of 74 with Mike Ward and 69 with David Morris, it was the Little Lever player who dominated the early part of the game. His eventual 98 came from 133 balls, and was instrumental, along with a couple of entertaining little cameos from Shahid Mahboob and Mark Stewart, in posting a fairly daunting total of 241 for 7.
Following the early loss of a wicket, however, the visitors surged on thanks to a stand of-90 at six per over, and, had the threatening rain fallen at that point, the Northern League would have gone through. But the bowlers hit back strongly with an excellent four-wicket spell from Mahboob, some top-class fielding, and three wickets from Rayment to underline his claim for the Man-of-the-Match award. The Northern League ended the game 49 runs short.
Prior to the Final away to the Ribblesdale League came the 31st Trinity Cup match at Westhoughton, where, taking advantage of the sun on their backs and a beautiful batting wicket under their feet, the Association's batsmen took the opportunity to break their own team batting record, hitting 235 for 6, with Greg Dimery's 114 also a new individual Association record. Brad White, however, never appeared to be in much trouble after tea, and productive partnerships with David Morris and Saced Anwar, who added a half-century to his hundred of the previous year, saw the League home in the last over with White ending the game on 106 not out. The home side's scoring rate midway through their innings was severely restricted when Blackrod's Terry Southworth bowled his ten overs for a miserly 11 runs, an achievement that was rewarded with the Man-of-the-Match award.
The M.E.N. Final at Edenfield, postponed from a waterlogged August 12th until Bank Holiday Monday, brought the League's only defeat of the season. For the first time in the quartet of matches, our early batting malfunctioned. Only Simon Anderton, who hit 34, played anything like up to the standard required, and it wds left to the last four in the order, Mahboob, Guest, Mahmood and Stewart to contribute 87 towards the final total of 173, with Sajid and Mark Stewart adding 53 for the last wicket. The home side got the good start they needed, and although the middle order didn't play particularly well, the Ribblesdale League moved to a well-deserved victory with four overs and two wickets to spare.
But if the inter-league season had ended on a low note, the Thwaites LCB Lancashire KO Trophy more than compensated for the disappointment, when Tonge became our fifth club to win the competition.
Their route to the Final began with a home tie against Freckleton, who had no real answer to Simon Anderton's unbeaten 103 which was the mainspring in an 88-run win. Each of our other five clubs made it through to Round Two. Greenmount beat Burscough by five wickets in a low-scoring game, Little Lever overcame Dukinfield by a similar margin, with Anthony
Hilton's 46 not out the game's top score, and Brad White's 78 pushed Westhoughton up to 184 before Crookson took 4 for 18 as Lytham were bowled out for 144. Aamir Sohail had 4 for 10 against Southport, who were dismissed for 133 after which Mike Ward saw Egerton home with a fine 72 not out, whilst Kearsley professional Fazal Akber destroyed Little Hulton with 5 for 17 to preface yet another 5-wicket victory.
In Round Two Tonge beat the first of their two Bolton League opponents in the competition. Little Lever were bowled out for 110, mainly by Taijard and Nisar, who each took three wickets to set up a six-wicket victory, and Egerton were beaten by Cherry Tree by 21 runs in spite of a half-century from Sohail. Greenmount lost at-Read by 10 wickets after having been bowled out for 98, and Westhoughton bowed out at Sefton. Kearsley, however, overcame St.Annes in a high scoring thriller at Springfield Road, where John Ratiedge's 100 and Simon
Thomson's 69 were largely responsible for a total of 209 for 3. St.Annes replied enthusiastically, and reached the position of requiring six off the final delivery of the game. But Darron Foy bowled Taylor, and Kearsley had forged an outstanding win by five runs..
The weather was the only real winner on the day designated for Round Three. Kearsley made the short journey to Clifton where they were forced to play a reduced match of 15 overs per side. Akber, Foy and Partington went in at 2, 3 and 4, and the tactic worked as Kearsley managed to reach 100 for 2 in the overs allowed. Clifton never recovered from a horrendous start, and were dismissed for 61. Tonge, due to play a keenly-anticipated game at Chorley, couldn't even get on the field - other than for a bowl-off, which Tonge won in a remarkable fashion when Dion Taijard hit the stumps with the first delivery of the 'competition' and then watched as 20 other bowlers missed the target!
Now, with Sod's Law working overtime, Tonge and Kearsley were drawn against each other at Castle Hill. Simon Thornson hit a fine unbeaten 93, and, thanks to support from Davies and Partington, Kearsley totalled 193 for 7. In reply, Nisar, Hallows, Aspden and
Taljard each rose to the occasion, as they were destined to do in the Final, and Tonge edged home with three wickets to spare and two overs remaining. Bootle were the Castle Hill visitors for the semi-final, and such was the general fixture congestion that it was played on Friday, August 17th. The Liverpool side batted first and scored 179 for 8, from which lan Taylor returned the excellent figures of 4 for 22. If Tonge's task appeared less than straightforward, at teatime, it had been eased considerably by the time Nisar and Aspden had raced up to 83 for 0, at
which point the pro was dismissed for a matchless 55. The pace was maintained, however, by Simon Anderton, and after Aspden was out at 133, Nigel Hallows stayed with his skipper until the target had been reached with Anderton two runs short of a much-deserved half century.
Tonge's opponents for the Old Trafford Final were to be Ormskirk, winners in 1999 and runners-up in 2000, but, having already seen off three previous winners of the competition en route to Old Trafford, that would have been of little consequence to Simon Anderton's side. Ormskirk batted first, and made a good start. Each of their first four batsmen scored runs, and a fairly forbidding total looked to be on the cards. But after Armstrong had become the first of three run-outs, and lan Eccleshare had got rid of Bums, Snellgrove and Pilon, the other seven batsmen could only muster a further 23 runs between them in the face of some very accurate bowling and particularly sharp fielding, and Tonge were left with a very gettable 161 as their target.
It became even more gettable after Adil Nisar and Rick Northrop had knocked off the odd 61 without loss, but then disaster struck when both openers and Simon Anderton were dismissed at that total. This brought together Aspden and Hallows who, having to start from scratch, found the going difficult. But eventually they won their mid-innings battle with the Ormskirk bowlers, and added 69 vital runs. 36 were now needed from the final six overs, and that was reduced by Dion TaIjard and Bob Waller to 15 from the last two. A six and a four from
Taljard brought the target down to three with an over remaining, and victory was finally achieved with three balls to spare.
Adil Nisar was named as Man-of-the-Match, although he would, I'm sure, have agreed that it could have been any one from six. From Freckleton to Old Trafford it had been, in essence, a team triumph that had brought both the trophy to Castle Hill, and honour to the Warburtons Bolton League.
Seven days later Tonge did it all again, albeit in a slightly lower profile situation, when they added the Lyddon Trophy to their collection. In their semi-final they beat Kearsley for the third time in four 2001 meetings. Kearsley hit 119 for 7, of which Simon Thomson scored an unbeaten 36, but Jim Aspden had the final word when, batting through the innings for 48 not out, he ensured victory in the last over by four wickets. Runs from Rick Parker, Alan Gaskell and Mike Crookson were responsible for Westhoughton's 162 for 6 in the second semi-final, a total that Bradshaw never threatened.
The Tyldesleys side batted first again in the Final, and reached 160 for 7 with Steve Parker the major contributor, and it appeared at one stage to be enough, when, in spite of good innings from Anderton and Kerrigan, eight Tonge wickets were down with only two overs remaining. This time, however, it was Nigel Hallows who produced the match-winning knock to give his team yet another last over victory in the competition they had won two years previously.
Indoors, it was Walkden all the way for the fourth consecutive winter. After a first-round bye in the Axford Trophy they beat Farnworth and
Tonge to set up a repeat of the previous year's Final in which Astley Bridge were their opponents. The winning margin on this occasion was one of 10 runs, thanks to a David Smith half-century and 28 from Mike Bennison. Paul Tebay hit an unbeaten 40 as Astley Bridge fell short, and once again
Walkden's four-pronged attack had proved unbeatable, with John Smith and Phil Ingrarn outstanding.
On Finals Day, Ingram's six avers during the two games cost just 19 runs. If England were ever called upon to select a team to play this form of cricket, they would be hard pushed to leave him out!
As they had done in the past two winters, Walkden went on to win the North West area competition, beating Haslingden with some case, and then Wythenshawe by four wickets in the Final. This time it was John Smith who produced the unbelievable figures, 2 for 7 from three avers. After having beaten a team from Shropshire, they finally went down to Yorkshire champions, Farsley, in the North of England Finals. Yet again the side, this time comprising Mike Bennison, David and John Smith, Phil Ingram, Andy Kay and Rob Slater, had brought a. lot of credit and prestige to themselves, their club and the League in general.
Rod Sandiford has been a prominent and popular personality in the Bolton League for 44 years now, and his outstanding service to Heaton Cricket Club and to the League was recognised at the Presentation Dinner when he received the Hubert Pendlebury Trophy. Off-hand, it's difficult to think of anyone who has had more cricketing strings to his bow than Rod. Batsman/wicketkeeper, club chairman, committee man, League Rep, groundsman, League Committee member for 20 years, grounds and disciplinary sub-committees, cricket ball distributor, and now co-opted member. A worthy and totally appropriate choice for such a prestigious award.
Lastly, our thanks to all at Warburtons, whose sponsorship of the League dropped neatly into place just over 12 months ago. It's good to have a very well-known and (possibly more important) local and cricket-minded company associated with us for what we all hope will be a long time to come. Thanks, too, to all those other benefactors and organisers whose names have, over the years, become so well-known that surnames have almost become superfluous. So, thanks to Tony and Martin, to Fred, to May, to Bernard and Eric, to Geoff for the stats, and to Rod for, well... for looking after our balls.
Thanks also to those clubs who hosted our big games with such efficiency, and finally, to those 29 umpires who remain on the roll. Ever since Arthur Crook began listing the
umpires names in 1971, there have usually been a minimum of around 40. Recently that number has dwindled alarmingly, and, bearing in mind that 28 are required on a weekly basis, the current list is not long enough by any stretch of the imagination. Before very long, if the present trend continues, we simply won't have enough umpires
for us to be able to carry on. Last season, because of the change of rule regarding overseas amateurs, we lost 12 very good players, which had no immediate effect on things. If we were to lose 12 very good umpires, then the League as we know it would grind to a halt.
So why are we losing umpires? Because, understandably, they are not prepared to stand there, week in and week out, for seven hours, suffering unwarranted verbal abuse from players, some of whom are likely to make more mistakes in any one game than the average umpire makes during the course of a season.
There are three ways forward. Firstly for clubs to make an urgent effort to find new umpires from within their own organisations. Secondly, for the odd player or two to stay in the game by becoming an umpire, as used to be the case, and, thirdly, for some players to start thinking more about the game as a whole, and less about themselves, and start behaving themselves a little bit better once they cross the white line.
And so, in the hope that members of the Disciplinary Committee don't see very much of each other during the season, and that we all do see a great deal of sun in the coming months, let's hope for a year to remember for all the right reasons in 2002.