Owzat for some community spirit!

The Underdales Cricket League, as it’s formally known, isn’t really a league in the normal sense of the word. It’s a more of a brotherhood, or a fraternity of local dales cricketers.

The league has its own rules (albeit with a passing resemblance to the MCC Laws), and their own code of attire. Match scores are recorded and kept by each of the teams, but not shared or compared. Eligibility to play is determined easily; those turning out always get a game. And, with an emphasis on nurturing the next generation, each team actively encourages players as young as 10 to come along and pit their cricketing wits against all ages up to and including seasoned septuagenarians.

The ‘raison d’etre’ of the league is quite simply good old fashioned fun and camaraderie.

Matt Mason, a farmer from Appletreewick, who founded the league back in 1988 along with his late friend, fellow farmer Peter Davison, explains how it all came about.

“It was a particularly nice spring and me and Peter and a few other farmers had got through lambing nice and early and seemed to be finding ourselves in the pub a lot, so we thought we’d better do something about it,” he said.

One gets the impression that the temptations of The New Inn and The Craven Arms weren’t entirely given over to cricket, particularly when one reads the ACC (Appletreewick Cricket Club) Rules that Matt and Peter devised.

In Matt’s words: “We wanted rules that suited people who can’t play cricket,” although when one considers the advantages of rules such as 12a: ‘A batsman cannot be out 1st ball,’ 12b: ‘Every batsman must retire at 25 runs,’ and 13b: ‘No LBWs are allowed,’ then it can be seen that Matt and Peter certainly knew a thing or two about keeping the game inclusive and non controversial. Nevertheless, most of the rules, such as Rule 6: ‘Boundary – this will be determined by the Captain’s mowing machine’ and 14a: ‘Whites must not be worn unless all other clothes are in the wash,’ illustrate perfectly the fantastic sense of humour that lies at the heart of the league.

Inspired by Matt and Peter’s formation of the Appletreewick team (or Ap’trick as it’s known locally), other Dales villages and hamlets started to put together teams, and by common consensus adopted the aforementioned ACC Rules. Gradually, over a couple of years, the Underdales League was born.

Burnsall, Hartlington, Thorpe, Hebden, Barden, Skyreholme and Malham along with Ap’trick became the core of the early league. All the league teams also played in the first ever Festival Tournament in 1990, which Skyreholme won.

Indeed Barden has won the tournament a record eight times over the last 23 years, which is a wonderful, if baffling, statistic for a hamlet with only a handful of houses.

Last Sunday’s Festival Tournament which took place in Daggett’s field beside the River Wharfe at Burnsall, was a spectacular day, blessed with blue skies and bright sunshine. Hartlington, Burnsall, Hebden, Ap’trick, Skyreholme and Barden played.

Cracoe played its Dales League 2nd team as the guest, and at the eleventh hour Thorpe pulled out because they couldn’t raise a team, to be replaced by a cobbled together team from Wharfedale RUFC. The scene had all the quintessential charm you’d expect from such an event, with each team erecting their own mini pavilion and ‘pop up’ eatery, which supplied all manner of gastronomical treats from pie and peas to roast pork and stuffing sandwiches. Makeshift ‘pubs’ fashioned from horse boxes and caravans also put in an appearance. Ancillary entertainment was swelled further by Matt’s son, local fell runner Ted Mason who played for Hartlington, doubling up as a bookmaker for the day. Ted in fact netted a tidy profit of £40 for the Fell Rescue.

The modus operandi for the tournament was a seven aside knockout, with the winners from the first four matches going through to the semi-finals.

The only alteration to the ‘official’ ACC rules was that a batsman could be out 1st ball – a change of rules which Hebden exploited to their advantage when they bowled ‘Bookie’s’ favourite Burnsall out for five in one of the semi-finals. A match referred to as “something which made the Wall Street Crash look like a long drawn out affair” by tournament commentator Ian ‘Adge’ Douglass. Hebden went on to meet Wharfedale RUFC in the final, who turned out to be not quite so cobbled together after all, with players such as Leeds No9 and former Wharfedale first team captain James Doherty, and Wharfedale Foresters’ scrum half Jimmy Bullough, making for a strong team.

It was a comfortable victory for Hebden though, with Chris Howick and Jack Kitching scoring the maximum for Hebden, and with Chris also bowling out Wharfedale’s star man Jimmy Bullough first ball. The final score was 48–28.

Ian Douglass assembled the crowd to conclude the day’s festivities in his own inimitable way, inviting Harley Davison, the late Peter Davison’s son, to present the prizes. Lewis Whitham, Hebden’s captain received the ‘Peter Davison trophy’ on behalf of the Hebden team. The prize for the ‘most hilarious moment’ went to Barden’s Tony Foster who had launched himself face first into a banking in his haste to field a ball which had landed in a particularly undulating patch of the Burnsall and Hartlington Oval.

In fact, Tony’s ‘moment’ rather sums up what the league and the festival are all about; people getting together to let off steam and share a few laughs.

The state of some of the pitches, pockmarked with cowpats and rabbit holes, which might drive more seriously competitive cricketers to distraction, purely adds to the spirit of the proceedings, and certainly provides plenty of anecdotes. Indeed, Ian Douglass has fond memories of Hebden’s first pitch, the ‘Half Oval’, remembering a match against Cracoe, in which one of the players drove down in his Jaguar and upon getting out asked: “Where’s the wicket?”

The reply came: “You’re parked on it.”

For anyone interested in joining or following the Underdales League, Appletreewick and Malham meet in early January for the first British cricket fixture of the year. The match will be played literally ‘whatever the weather’.

Nearer the time see http://www.malhamdale.com/cricket1.htm for details.