There’s no hiding place as a long-time Church supporter with a foot firmly in the Accrington camp these days.
An umpire pal text me on Sunday morning to say he’d been standing when Accy’s sub-pro’ing Jurie Snyman, non-striker, was run out batting for Littleborough without facing a ball on Saturday.
I replied I wasn’t that concerned as he seldom fails twice in a weekend.
“Spoken like a true Accy fan,” he countered, woundingly.
Ooh, that one stung!
Safe from ‘judas’ banners this time I knew I wouldn’t have more than a few minutes at tea-time to spend with old Church pals as you are quite isolated and busy in the Thorneyholme Road scoring quarters which I often shared with Lionel Cooke in my days as Church scorer.
If I had my heart fully in the Accy camp I might have cynically hoped not to see Jurie bat at all.
But I suspected what might happen. Church to bat whoever won the toss, get bowled out for not many and Jurie possibly not having much to do. And so it unfolded.
In front of almost certainly the best Thorneyholme Road gate of the season with a healthy travelling contingent from the WECG, Church never really recovered from losing both skipper Raheem Kasser and David Bury with just two on the board.
There was a stand here and a potential mini-revival there after Jacob Clarke had accounted for the top three, Craig Fergusson looking promisingly in nick before disappointedly holing out when he looked set.
Rohab Hussain has impressed me as a cricketer this season and Jonny Smith played spiritedly but pro Gunasinghe batted like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders and the home amateurs shared the wickets out while Snyman delivered his customary 15 overs wicket less but parsimoniously at less than two an over.
The only real drama in the second innings came in the scorers’ quarters as my iPad charge ran out and connection to PlayCricket was lost as it refused to charge.
Mia, Church’s brilliant young scorer, was a fabulous help as I sweated and panicked and between us we kept the board correct while internet connection to the outside world was lost in the ether. Oh for the days of the book and tin lads.
We played that game cricket fans sometimes do of pondering what a side Church would have if even some of the recently departed or inactive lads, some of whom come watching like Tucker, Crabtree, Florentine and co were available.
We had many similar discussions at Accy last year lamenting the fact that the likes of Grimshaw, Gorton, Crabby again, Hanson and Farnworth were elsewhere.
(Grimmy took eight for 43 for Penwortham subbing at weekend. Some of the Penny lads asked me what he was like. I said he was off form of late with the bat. He wasn’t needed to bat!) Fortunes have reversed those of Church - while the Scullys, Holts, Bhadas and a few more left West End, Accrington got Hanson and Farnworth back in the fold and signed two more quality recruits in Jonny Dack and Sam Molloy. Those four have helped lift the whole feel and mood at the place.
Jonny played impeccably again to get the home side more than half way to Church’s inadequate 129 in brisk partnership with Graeme Sneddon.
Jacob was in no mood to hang around and when Jurie joined him it was just a matter of how many overs to spare there would be - a full 29 as it happened ended.
I mentioned to one stalwart Church fan as I left (after an hour trying and failing to reconnect to the net) that they were struggling and got a slightly gnomic, Steve Keanesque response that ‘we’re not struggling, we’re just not winning many.’
I hear even the pizza and coffee wagon has abandoned the Church faithful but it will take more than a few blows to knock the stuffing out of a club run and supported by such loyal and indefatigable supporters.
The sooner they are on the up the happier I will be.
That was a second early finish of the weekend for me after Cherry Tree, another of my teams who are struggling, collapsed to 99 all out batting first at Walkden.
Those of you who follow my travel memoirs will know the Bolton club isn’t my favourite away venue.
There was some pre-match cabaret provided, however, when two motorists involved in a loud road-rage argument just near Farnworth decided to continue their beef along the busy Worsley Road. A high speed chase ensued followed by two screeching 180 degree turns at velocity at a traffic light, the kind of thing you might have seen end in fisticuffs in a Fulham Road breakers’ yard on The Sweeney.
My next surprise was beholding that the huge deserted shopping precinct which stood like Chernobyl having been rendered superfluous by the Trafford centre has in fact now been demolished.
Having admired the UK’s biggest Tesco which does remain, I watched Cherry collapse pitifully, only pro Min Bhada reaching 25 while Walkden knocked them off in just 18 and a half overs.
At least Cherry claimed a solitary bonus point for getting them five down. If loud exhortation and encouragement of team-mates to perform was worth points the Cherry lads would have claimed a few more, every dot ball greeted by ‘oohs’ and ‘ohs’ and enthusiastic clapping while they still had a sniff.
They went down in similar circumstances to another heavy defeat on Sunday.
Overseas Hudson Walshaw made 42 but 130 all out was always inadequate despite having Earby 33 for three.
The indefatigable Ross Bretherton was among the wickets as he was on Saturday but despite removing Earby Pro Uti Srivastava, featured in a Wilky's Weekend special interview last week, for nought, his second low score of the weekend, it was just a single bonus point for five down.
The weekend was overshadowed of course by the death of the incomparable Garry Sobers.
I’m not sure I ever saw Sir Garfield live but his flamboyance and charisma for West Indies and more specifically during that magnificent 1970 England versus Rest of The World series which hurriedly filled in the banned South Africa gap in Apartheid times hooked me even further into cricket at that most impressionable of ages, 11 and nervously passing the summer between Primary and Secondary school.
It was cricket of the gods that summer and Sobers strode among them like the colossus he was. Only Muhammad Ali and Pele could beat him for pure star quality and presence in a sports arena.
Sobers played just twice in the Lancs League, once each for Colne and Church in 1961 and had a game for Todmorden in the Worsley Cup in 1965.
In League circles he is sadly associated with the road accident death of O’Neill Gordon ‘Collie’ Smith, pro at Burnley in 1958 and 1959 and scorer of a Worsley Cup record 306 not out. Sobers was the driver and carried that burden throughout his glittering career and beyond.
To hear within days that another diamond of a bloke, Kevin Keegan, more everyman but one who by sheer force of will and personality projected his talents into the very highest fields than almost achieved the impossibly by doubling his magnetism and aura as a manager had also passed almost acted as a flashing beacon to those of my generation.
The departure lounge is emptying of our idols and we are the next bunch due to be ushered in.
Keegan would not have enjoyed the footy Word Cup final if he was unfortunate to see it. The first knockings of the 2026-27 season are tiresomely upon us just halfway through the cricket summervand we really ought to be getting stuck into a 5-Test cricket series right now, getting to know the tourists’ personalities over the holidays but we get the 100.
At least England signed off temporarily with a great white ball display against India.
Lancs are getting ready for their own 50-over campaign at Sedbergh as I write this and I’ve got tickets for the two Farington ties next week. I know it’s a virtual B team but I can at least identify with them more than I can with Manchester Salt and Vinegar Night Riders or whatever the daft Hundred lot are called these days.
I did another England Over 40 Lions game last week at Norley Hall near Wigan which must go down as the club with the most inadequate parking facilities to stage cricket games.
Not only does getting 22 players, two umpires and two scorers in fill the available space -there’s no nearby road parking available - in a manner such that first in has to be last off it, they have a parcel collection service at the back of the pavilion whereby locals block the gates to retrieve their goodies from a wall of tin lockers.
It was a good game against the NW 40 Club with Nelson players, Khurram Nazir and Nabeel Ahmed on either side.
Scoring facilities were laughably inadequate but my companion for the day Horwich‘s marvellous and charming scorer Steve Merry was a perfect gentleman in allowing me the slightly better view.
Hopefully Clifton near Salford on Thursday for a county representative match will be better appointed. I’m off work for a few weeks now and Hopi no to get a few more interesting matches.
Accrington are at Colne on Sunday and Cherry Tree host Atherton on Saturday but I have a rare weekend off as Lesley and I celebrate 23 years married on Saturday.
I have booked Lesley a four-hour photography shoot at a posh joint on Saturday afternoon so if anyone in the Tetbury area needs the tallying doing…..and I note that Gloucestershire are at Bristol on Sunday. Doubt they’ll let Rollo on though so that’s happen as well.
We might ‘spoil another couple’ but she really is my rock, my salvation and my forever best friend and deserves a weekend when I dedicate myself to marking our unbreakable (I hope) bonds. I adore her and whatever life throws at us, me and our girls know she will come up with a solution, a way.
Our eldest gets married in September but had the good grace to book it on a Friday! Cricket for me that Saturday, Millie will probably be at Deepdale in the Rovers end. Olivia organised her hen weekend in Nottingham last week and they knew I would be excited by news of two new cricket grounds in the Holme Pierrepoint area.
So a rare no-cricket weekend. I’ll find a couple of grounds somewhere to walk the dog on and report back next week.
Last week’s quiz answer - Andy Stevenson This week: Collie Smith, Sobers’ great friend, made his 306* for Burnley in a timeless Worsley Cup game against Lowerhouse In 1958 Collie played for Burnley in a Worsley Cup semi final at Accrington and we had a star sub pro playing his only game for the club. He was a well-known league pro and later a first class umpire. Can you name him?
