Surely it's time Scunthorpe area club cricket had a senior midweek league once again. It's some years since the sadly missed, long-running Broughton and District Evening League folded, the number of teams having declined steadily since the late 1970s when there were three divisions and a knockout cup.
This issue was touched on, in passing, at this month's annual general meeting of the North Lindsey (Sunday) League, during talks on a possible additional cup competition.
The North Lindsey involves teams from the Gainsborough and Grimsby areas which both have midweek leagues, Grimsby having SEVEN divisions. The Caistor area is served by the West Wold League, while some of the Isle of Axholme lads take part in the Snaith Evening League, in which Luddington operate.
League fixture secretary Glen Sands, who is involved with Luddington's midweek side, pointed out the difficulties involved in getting teams together.
Reference was also made to the existence of the well-established Scunthorpe Midweek Friendly League, in which a number of company teams take part.
It was also stressed there's so much junior league cricket in the Scunthorpe area these days - under-13, under-15, under-17 - that fitting in men's midweek matches would be difficult for many clubs. Meanwhile, many junior players who also be required to turn out in the men's evening league, for team-raising reasons.
My own comments on this topic at the meeting prompted a suggestion from Alan Pashley (Scunthorpe Town) that I might well be the person to take on the organisation.
Someone then made reference to the domestic difficulties posed by additional midweek cricket, resulting in another night away from the "better half". That prompted me to joke: "I'm considering coming out of retirement!"
About five years ago, in the late, lamented In A Spin column in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, we tried to get teams to come forward to resurrect the old Broughton Evening League (not necessarily under that banner). However, there was little or no interest.
Today, my offer still stands. If we can get half-a-dozen clubs in the Scunthorpe area to commit themselves, I'm sure we can get a meeting organised and a league up and running pretty quickly. It could still be done for 2011, or maybe teams would be thinking of 2012. I don't mind either way. Post a comment on this article or email scoopfisher@aol.com
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I would like to see the lincs league run a twenty twenty comp. played in three sections , Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Lincoln, winners of each group play a finals day with best loser...... in which case you have another show piece final that might make the better teams take notice and the better players might want to play.....
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Hibaldstow could raise a side. It would be a great way to give some fringe players a chance to get more of a game. Why not try to add to the friendly league and run two divisions so that the weaker sides could play at the right level - and the stronger sides too? The issue with the friendly league for clubs like us was that we couldn't comply with the limit on "league" players. We played in that league for two or three years and it was a great experience - even on the Co-Op ground.
ReplyDeleteAnd if we had double summertime then all games could start at 6:30!
What about resurrecting the Hospital Cup, where the rules made a much fairer playing field for the weaker sides.
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