4- The Good Old Days
“Say goodbye to the oldies, but goodies, because the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems” Billy Joel
I have no idea exactly when it all started with my association with Bolton Villas CC but it stretches back some forty years at the time of writing. So much has changed that it often seems impossible to track and time passes so quickly it barely seems a few years ago that we were making our first steps as a new team at Under Fourteen level to complement the only other junior team at the club in those days the all-encompassing Under Eighteens. The preparation at the end of the summer of 1975 prior to us joining the Bradford Junior League the year after was a friendly with Sandy Lane CC. If this had been part of some detailed planning process complete with a Mission Statement from the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) it would have been genius planning. This was largely because batting for survival at Greenwood Park,Sandy Lanewas always much like trying to fend the nasty senior pro Wisey off on one of our outfield practice tracks so “sporty” were the tracks at this municipal park ground on the other side of the city. I have to say I never ever visited Greenwood Park with much hope for an afternoon of batting pleasure in the years that followed and the best you could hope for was that you did not cop a “snorter” up the nose.
It was a natural progression for a group of mates, most living within a good throw of a cricket ball from the Villas ground, who had developed a love of the game and a good deal of camaraderie. It helped that there were a few sets of brothers as well: the Medleys, Elliotts, Tattersalls, Kellys and me and Our Kid because you had some form of inheritance and succession planning…of sorts. These days it is so much different as the kids come from far and wide and there are many reasons for this. One factor is that the occupants of the local houses seem to have stayed put so long despite the regular summer shelling of rooftops so there have been far fewer new families move in and the surrounding areas are almost like a McCarthy & Stone sheltered housing complex. Another curious one has been my peer group and subsequent years strangely breeding many more daughters than sons. And of course people are generally more mobile these days. So will we see a group of local kids coming together in future generations well maybe not? Through misty eyes then perhaps these were golden years…or were they?
Haighy
Many, many moons ago, long before we ever stepped upon the ground there has always been Brian Cresswell Haigh or as we all know him…Haighy. Rumour has it that Haighy has been a member of the club since formation way back as far as we can tell to around 1923. In truth the old boy hardly seems to have changed in the near forty years I have been at the club and I suppose there is an art to looking that scruffy for so long. In actuality Haighy celebrated sixty five years at Villas in 2011 a remarkable period of service albeit nobody has ever seen him get his hands that mucky. In our younger years Haighy always seemed to be at the ground in his slippers telling anybody that would stop long enough what a fine pair of opening bowlers him and his sidekick, Tom Brown, had been in the dim and distant past. Whilst most people were enjoying the Swinging Sixties for reasons other than cricket the already balding Browny and bespectacled Haighy were terrorising local batsmen with a twin pronged swinging pace attack captained by the legendary Ernest Jackson.
Now as Haighy has seen more than most at the Villas I thought it only right to sit down with the man and recount some of his tales. And given that over the years he has performed many, many roles including Peacemaker (Henry Kissinger narrowly beat him for the United Nations job), opening bowler, President, Chairman, Committee Man, Tea Lady and at one point junior team manager there are few better to give an insight into the early years at the Villas. And so for all of you like me that are old enough to remember when all we had was that great big rusty heavy roller and oceans of time to while away on a Tuesday night after practice. With no bar to retreat to this allowed endless hours of rolling the thing up and down listening to never ending tales of daring-do’s from Haighy about “the good old days”. And yet in all that time I never ever, ever saw him lay one finger on that roller as he casually strode alongside it in his worn slippers, fag in hand, hair slicked back about to start yet another tale from the glorious past. So read on into yester-year…
All Our Yester Years
“We started playing cricket around about when I was ten so that must have been about when the war was still going on in the forties. Down at St Cuthbert’s church on Wrose Road there was a patch of spare grass where the church now stands and because there was so little space if you hit the ball to the off-side it generally went under the old building which meant you were out and had to crawl under like a miner to get the ball back. We were never sure what we might find under that hut and so playing a beautiful cover drive was not the preferred shot. So we all slogged it to the leg side – across the line – like early versions of Viv Richards only I bet he weren’t doing it because he was crapping himself about the Boogey Man under the hut. Don’t listen to any of the old guys about playing straight we all grew up wiping it across the line scared witless of going under that building.
There were no houses at all at that time and the cricket field stood in acres of ground with the old pavilion up in Critics’ Corner isolated and open to the elements although the Luftwaffe never seemed that bothered enough to bomb it. There were no toilets or running water and we locked it up every winter hoping that it would still be there when we came back the following year. In truth it was that riddled with holes that even the hedgehogs gave it a miss for winter and in those days kids did not burn things down for kicks…not that they could have because it was riddled with damp as well. We had a bucket for a pee and if you wanted anything else well it was a long walk into the long grass and more tales of awaiting Boogey Men. It did though have a white picket fence around it and had the look of Little House on the Prairie as isolated as it was. I’m telling you we had now’t in those days just the fear of Hitler coming and stopping play for good. Times were grim! Mind you the odd crater might have helped the wicket.
The Debutant
Eventually I made my debut for the Under Eighteens in 1947 safe in the knowledge that the Luftwaffe had gone but now even more terrified trying to bat on the Villas wicket. We did not have nets or fancy helmets and we rarely practised because it was dangerous enough playing on the wicket let alone trying to find a patch of grass flat enough not to threaten losing a few teeth. Soon they picked me for the Second Team and I’ll never forget my first match because we only had ten men. Well we started with eleven but when we were warming up – none of these fancy cones and hoops like a bloody circus that you lot use these days – we just had two balls. Unfortunately they were both thrown at our opening bowler, Bill Tomkins, a coalman who turned up to games blacker than soot and often we told the opposition he was West Indian and fast and nasty. He must have had some soot in his eyes and as one ball screamed towards his head and the other towards a bit lower down…well he must have missed the second one as he caught the first in front of his eyes only to go down pole-axed a split second later and have to be carried off on the back of his coal cart. Mrs Tomkins was not happy.
A couple of years later I made my first team debut but I had no boots so the Treasurer, Sidney Wilson bought me a brand new pair of buckskin boots. Strangely I got a bollocking after getting two quick wickets with the opposition labouring to get a total and running out of overs as the two batters had been painfully slow. I got a bollocking because we just didn’t want these two out and when in came Eddie Paynter, ex England captain, who promptly smashed a hundred, my team mates were livid at me for taking wickets! Nay how can a young lad understand that one? Ernest was livid and it was tough introduction as his view was he did not care if the opposition were none down or all out just how many they got. Still the buckskins felt that good I took the nails out and went off clubbing in them. I think I met Dot that night and even felt that flush I bought her a coke with a slice of lemon!
The Three Wise Men
The club was run and effectively owned by The Three Wise Men in those days. Willie Burnhill was a textile man in the days when the industry was still one where lots of money was being made. Then there was Albert Berry whose family owned Berrys print works in Shipley and amongst other things The Theatre Royal and a local circus which could have been the Villas I suppose given what went on most Saturdays in summer. And finally there was Hubert Long, a respected local banker in the city centre who worked for the bank that became Nat West. They bought the field from a turnip farmer through a company called Willowfield Estates Ltd and eventually they sold it to the club for £500 in the forties although I don’t think any money changed hands. Maybe it was money laundering but I don’t think any drugs changed hands maybe a cart of turnips. So although we were always skint we weren’t really because we had three wealthy local benefactors to bail us out. Each year at the Annual General Meeting at the Wrose Bull we arrived to see how big the loss was that year and at the end of the meeting the three of them simply opened their wallets and things were okay again…for another year at least
One year the pavilion just blew away in a storm and we had to collect the scattered bits and put it back together again. It looked like a patchwork quilt and time was not on its side by then. If you said it was air conditioned you would not be far off. We didn’t have a garage which was just as well as we didn’t have any equipment to put in it apart from one mower. We cut the outfield by hand – honest to God – and it was like painting the Forth Bridge we just kept at it all year around doing a patch a time. Once again The Three Wise Men came to the rescue and in the fifties we finally got a new pavilion which was opened by the legendary Brian Sellers, ex England and Yorkshire captain. Imagine Boycott coming to the Villas these days he’d want a fortune just to turn up! Sellers were hard as nails and he stayed to watch all of our first game from the new hut. As one of the opposition was close to fifty I bounced him, hit him flush between the eyes and laid him out. Seeing their star man laid out unnerved the rest and we skittled them to win the game. After the game Sellers came up to me and prodded me on the shoulder.
‘Did you mean to hit him on the head young ‘un?’ Well I didn’t know what to say to be honest and I was bricking it.
‘I did Sir’ was the truth but any ball on the Villas track in those days could kill you.
‘Good lad’ he smiled and walked away fro some more cake. That man was tough as they came.
There were some great characters back in those days. Gilly Potter turned up each week, heat wave or not, in a raccoon coat, all he was short of was a hunting hat and a shotgun. And then there was the City Gent who brought his brolly to the game again oblivious to the weather but he left in a fit of pique after Norman Naylor’s dog, Dandy, ran off with one of his expensive Italian loafers never for it to be seem again. Around the ground though things were changing as developers moved during the fifties to start to build the houses you see today. What was a collection of farm fields and stone quarries started to become new houses and the old Swain House FC pitch that ran alongside the cricket pitch at the Willow Gardens end was swallowed up. A lot of the stone for the London Embankment came from around the Villas. In a deal with the developers we traded a strip of land at the Willow Gardens end to get a much bigger piece at the other end which is why you have the short boundary at that end and that woman with the beagles keeps getting peppered.
Progress – Life in the Atco Fast Lane
It got a bit better in the sixties when we had a Double Numbers game a bit like the Bonus Ball today which raised enough money – by now the Three Wise Men had passed on – to buy our first petrol mower, an ATCO which we all stood around fascinated by our march into the technological age. And then Gerald “Geraldo” Taylor hit on a great idea to mow the outfield quicker. We bought some old gangers and Geraldo fixed them to his dad’s car, borrowed it allegedly to go courting and drove around the field in ever decreasing circles this big grey car with a clattering mess of metal and grass cuttings exploding behind it. Progress even if Mr Taylor Snr had a car permanently covered in grass cuttings.
By this time Granville Lawson was groundsman and I don’t know if it was because he was one-eyed or just rubbish at painting because he painted the lines on the wickets thicker than motorway road markings. One day an umpire commented on how thick these were and Granville, as you know not noted for his diplomacy, fixed his one good eye on the umpire and said ‘they may be thick but they should help blind umpires like thee lad!’ Granville also opened the batting with little Wilf Binns who also only had one eye so we only had two good eyes to open the batting…no wonder we never got any runs. Villas was no different from other grounds though and playing at Woodlands old ground was really hairy as the field was surrounded by wheat fields. Granville and me we looking for the ball one day – okay I should have taken somebody with two eyes I know – when the farmer snuck up behind us with his shot gun and chased us out of the field. Imagine that these days they’d have the Riot Squad flying in a flash!
We did try to improve the wicket and dug it up more than once often being surprised with what we found. One year there was a slab of stone that took ten of us to move and eventually lift it out – I even had to help – and we had to break it up by hand. Then we found an old mining tunnel that runs across the ground and made the mistake of sending Browny down with torch only for him to get stuck. We pulled him out and filled it in before anybody found the City Gent’s missing loafer. By now although we were surrounded by new houses and had a new pavilion ourselves we were still skint from year to year. We didn’t really struggle for players though and there were that many that if you didn’t turn up on practice night you weren’t picked. Not that anybody practiced as we had nowhere to practice save for the rock infested outfield. We just turned up to await smoke from the Selection Committee meeting room to announce the teams for the weekend. The Selection Committee had a dozen members on it and the Main Committee was over twenty so it was no wonder we got now’t done. Still…we could talk…and talk…and talk.
There were loads of players and standards were very good much better than today. Most Bradford League teams had internationals turning out plus Yorkshire players and could be watched by thousands. The Bradford Central League was also really strong as a result and many Bradford League players finished their days in the league still capable of playing at a really good standard. We also had a weekend team that had several days out a year with coach trips to faraway places like…Redcar, Saltburn and Birstwith. At Birstwith the opposition walked off the pitch to abandon the game in response to the calling of the local church bells at the behest of the local squire who owned the pitch. The buggers had made sure they batted first though. We sang songs on the way there and songs on the way back. We also had a Half Holiday League team as by the Sixties with Ernest as captain we had an influx of postmen. Even the tea lady for these matches – Gladys Betts – was a post woman.
Captaincy
Eventually I took my turn as captain and two games stand out for different reasons. I captained the side when the players went on strike in protest at me bowing to a Committee order to bowl our so-called spinner in those days the legendary Arthur “Arturo” Rooney. Arturo’s best mate was John “Panto” Panton and together they had approached me o protest at me not bowling them. Truth was Panto had been done for chucking a few weeks previous which was laughable as he bowled the slowest stuff you had ever seen. Chuck it? He could barely get it from one end to the other! Arturo bowled in this baggy sweater big enough to house a family of refugees but he bowled these big “donkey-droppers” that fell from the sky only for a batter to smash them back into the sky. I tell you my Dot could turn a ball more than Arturo!
So we had the other lot about eight down for not a lot and I brought on Arturo with the Committee men watching on. Bang went the first out of the ground followed by several more balls prompting the first ever shutters to be erected over windows around the ground the following week and neighbours reminiscing about the Blitz…had the Luftwaffe finally found the Villas? Finally I brought back my openers and we bowled them out. When I got back to the dressing room everybody was getting changed – the team had gone on strike – nobody would bat! Eventually, our keeper a young lad called Terry Crabtree was persuaded by his dad to open with me. Terry normally batted at seven so this was a big promotion and do you know what? We won…by ten wickets…which was just as well as Arturo and Panto were next in at three and four and if you thought their bowling was bad…! The final disgrace on my watch though was the only time the First team have been rounded up by the police having been bowled out for the lowest ever total at Thornbury of 13.
We were so down we just thought ‘bugger it’ and decided to go out on the ale so we dropped our bags off and got the trolley bus down to Bradford. Later on – don’t tell Dot this one – we took another trolley bus up and out of Bradford and went to a place called the Blue Cat at Guiseley where there were loads of Leeds girls who were a bit different from Bradford lasses. Unfortunately, our opening bowler, John Pullan, had the most possessive wife you could ever meet not that John could be bothered with other women as the one he was married to terrified the life out of him. She ruled him with a rod of iron but remember there were no mobile phones in those days…so she called the police! Somehow they tracked us down and, imagine this, told us all to get off home – which we all did without question – and I never ever went to the Blue Cat again. By the time the seventies came along I was almost into my forties and the new houses had started to bring young kids to the club. Everything was about to start to change faster than ever before…but nobody ever found the City Gent’s loafer.”
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