“He’s one of our own,” is a regularly-aired accolade at football grounds these days, usually sung in reference to a homegrown favourite.
The days of one-club men like Ronnie Clayton are long gone though and in the case of a local hero like Adam Wharton (son of former Rishton and East Lancs cricket favourite John) you have to accept that they will move on and enjoy their progress elsewhere vicariously, although brother Scott remains at Ewood.
Even in local cricket, moving from club to club is epidemic these days - often in mid-season - so to see Accrington honour a loyal and faithful servant at weekend was moving, even to an old Church supporter like myself.
Graeme Sneddon isn’t the kind of guy to demand any ceremony or enjoy any fuss but secretary Mark Taylor persuaded him to receive commemoration off an incredible 500th Lancashire League appearance between innings after Rawtenstall had been bowled out cheaply on Sunday.
Given that I’ve followed league cricket since 1968, to discover that Sneddon’s longevity puts him beyond many of the legendary names I associate with the club is mind-boggling. The Worswicks, Hayhursts, Robinsons, Rawstrons, Parsons, Swanneys, Wilsons, Wests, Clarkes, Cuddihys, Ormerods, Beechy - I know some of them moved around but he is so far beyond people I regarded as Thornyholme Road fixtures it’s untrue.
If they ever dig a Mount Rushmore out of Huncoat quarry he’ll surely be on there.
Only the late and sadly lamented Ian Birtwistle has played more and given form and fitness (and barring an unexpected transfer) Sneds could pass Birty’s record late in the 2027 season. Birty’s catching record of 154 is also well in sight.
Only the four players with more than 6,000 runs (Sneds needs another 300 or so for that landmark) have scored more and the most recently-retired of those, Lindon Dewhurst, called it a day in 1962.
Only two players have captained Accrington more often. At well under 40, he still seems young enough to crack on a bit to me.
It’s never too late to learn new things though, as he found while opening the innings shortly after Rawtenstall were bowled out leaving the home side with a paltry 111 to pass.
Fifteen balls into his innings with the total on 28 he pulled the first delivery sent down by a man even more truly answering to the ‘legendary veteran’ description , Keith Roscoe to the midwicket boundary fielder only to discover he had stepped back onto his stumps.
In game number 500 he’d found a new way to get out, hit wicket.
“Just need to be timed out now to complete the set, Wilky” he lamented.
That would be some feat opening the innings even with early starts and as the tea breaks get longer (although one committee man who’s obviously never had to perform scorer duties at half time was telling me he thinks they’re too long last week).
Graeme got to sit and watch an imperious Johnny Dack stroke his way to a maiden 50, adding 76 with Jurie Snyman in an unbroken third-wicket partnership which kept Accrington ‘in the promotion spots” as excitable reporters say as the season passes half way.
It was nice to see Rawtenstall supporter Chris Egan before the game if only in the comic circumstance that son Thomas had forgotten his flannels and needed them rushing across.
Tom made a composed 36 for the visitors having survived his third hat-trick ball of the season and beginning his knock with five slips in the cordon. Asad Khan returned excellent figures of four for 17 after Jurie and skipper Jacob had rather strangled the top order.
Great Harwood away on Sunday might be a sterner test.
On Saturday I was back on one of my old scoring/Accrington Observer patches up at New Lane as Immanuel hosted Cherry Tree.
On another overcast day, bowlers were on top and in the end it could hardly be classed as a low-scoring thriller as Oswaldtwistle’s 130 all out was passed by Cherry with almost twenty overs and four wickets to spare.
Home pro Imran Abid put in a good all-round show with 46 and a couple of wickets but might have been better utilised opening the bowling with overseas man Tyler Evans who took four wickets.
Tyler’s fellow Aussie Hudson Walshaw got a five-fer for Cherry Tree.
In personal news I’ve been asked to score a couple of games for England Over-40s at Richmond, North Yorkshire and Norley Hall near Wigan next week. I’m looking forward to those. Thanks to Nigel for putting an ad on the League website earlier this year for that!
I’m also hoping to get a first look at Farrington this week.
It’s been quite a testing time for the family of late with my dad moving from hospital to hospital and now from care home to residential home to nursing home with such regularity he could have his own ‘tour venues’ t-shirt printed.
He and my mum are now resident (hopefully) in a nursing home just by Corporation Park in Blackburn, just a couple of Allan Border six-hits from Alexandra Meadow where both dad and I learned to love cricket.
He was reminiscing about falling off his bike struck by a car as a teenager coming down nearby Shear Bank from his old school when I popped in on the way home from Accrington.
It got me thinking about my schooldays.
Those of my vintage are always prone to remember the long hot summer of 1976 when the summer turns warm and this week is always a sentimental one for me as I fell hopelessly in love with a girl in the sixth form exactly 50 years ago. I almost forgot about sport for a time. I’d already ‘retired’ from cricket to take a. Saturday job on the Record Counter at Woolys.
She helped carry my guitar and amp to the Boulevard after a dreadful gig by the dreadful band I was in. If I didn’t make my move that night….. wel it was the last day of Lower 6th the next day so needs must.
It was one of those butterflies-in-your-tummy, can’t-eat, save-your-two-pences-for-the-phone-box romances that make the opening line of “Teenage Kicks’ ring true.
Being around Corporation Park reminded me that my new girlfriend met me in equatorial heat (the weather, not her for clarity) there a few weeks later with a bag of Sports Pinks and Monday Evening Telegraphs she’d saved me while I was away in France for five weeks, the two of us writing to one another daily.
That was the only way I could keep up with the local cricket scores - no phones or websites then. You know you’re onto a winner when you meet someone prepared to go to those lengths to keep you up with Alf Thornton’s columns although I wasn’t that popular with my pal Paul who’d hoped I’d be his holiday-romance hunting partner-in-mischief as Brittany baked and couples in swimwear paired off all Summer long.
Romance burnt out after a couple of years but Christine and I remain friends. I joke that nobody else has ever been able to supply me with news of a Trevor Chappell century at Church and a Bryan Ferry EP as a coming-home present.
During the five weeks in Carnac I’d bumped into Bernard Hurst, head of my sixth form at St Mary’s and a schoolboy contemporary of my dad. Only later in life did I realise that Bernard, still with us at 91, was a three-time Worsley Cup winner with Rishton. He was just a nice teacher to me. Who cares about someone older’s history at that age?
They say that life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards.
A couple of weeks ago the Church scorer Mia pointed to her left and said: “This guy was a good player.”
It was the kind of thing my dad or grandad might have said if one of the old East Lancs players was walking round with a stick. I expected to see Barry Wilson or Billy Wilkinson pootling along.
I looked up to see the Lycra-clad youthful looking frame of Sam Tucker, retired (I think) now but possibly the best league wicket-keeper I ever watched. He looked as if he could jump on a bike and do a mountain stage of the Tour.
I watched him as a kid take the most extraordinary stumping off Nick Westwell. I’d already retired from playing.
When I moved to Nottingham to live with the lady I’m now married to I watched him play a game for Notts twos and never shut up to anyone who’d listen in the Trent Bridge press box that the county was missing out if they didn’t’ sign the keeper from Church.
It never happened but not for lack of my urging.
Life accelerates and you learn stuff that would have been so handy to know at 19, or even 25 or 35.
Soon I hope to be seeing grandkids of lads I played with cricketing - there will be young Fergussons, Gilranes and Metcalfs coming up to that age.
Nobody wil ever see me shuffling along and say: “This mon was a belting player.”
But at 68 at least I get to make an England debut of sorts next week, God willing.
Have a great sporting weekend everyone - at least we can al get to bed at a reasonable time.
Last weeks quiz - Answer Naeem Ashraf who still umpires in the Leagues.
This week- Sneds’ last appearance means that Accrington, for one week, have one player each on 500, 400 and 300 games. One (400) played his last game to date in 2024, the other (300) in 2003. Can you name them?
