I'm not sure if this will be the final Wilky's Weekend column of the season or not.
We'll see if anything of note happens after a wet, wild week which seems to have trampolined us straight from Summer to Winter. There is County Cricket, a One-Day final, and scarcely credibly, ODIs in Ireland as well as a final day programme in the NWCL this week but I have already donned waterproofs and winter gear I packed in the car for our recent visit to John O'Groats so I'm sceptical about the weekend.
Accrington concluded their fixtures in gathering gloom at 7.26pm on Sunday when the rest of the Lancs League had called it a day hours before with a fifth win out of seven to end 2025 season on a high note, with a handful of spectators merrily chanting: "We win in the dark, we win in the dark..."
That tickled me and so reminded me of the famed "Church and Ossy, Church and Ossy.." choruses which have heralded many a win for their neighbours.
About a year ago Accrington's Hayhurst brothers Jon and James sat me down with scorer Mark Taylor and asked me about doing First XI duties this season. I'd helped out with the Second XI since Covid days but they knew how to appeal to my love of Lancashire League cricket and underlying desire to get involved more by telling me 'we think you're wasted on the seconds."
Now I've never told anyone this tale before but I had a similar if not identical conversation with Church skipper Steve Metcalf at the start of 1985 when he told me I'd been picked for a pre-season friendly at Blackpool and though I wouldn't be considered for regular first team cricket immediately, if I worked on fielding and batting as well as keeping going taking wickets, there was a chance for me there.
Now to be quite frank, I 'gibbed.' I told Steve I had a weekend away booked with the girlfriend and wasn't available. I had, but she certainly wouldn't have objected to me cancelling it for my shot at a game.
But I just didn't have the mental fortitude or self-belief to back myself. I feared first-team cricket. I feared the pros, the spectators, the fearsome hitting of the ball, the steepling skiers, having to face West Indian pacesters, the wrath of team-mates if I couldn't hack it and the damage I knew it would inflict on me psychologically if as I suspected, I was an abject failure.
One player once told me another lad out of the twos would never have hacked it as he couldn't have coped with the stick from the crowds.
I agreed: "Yeah, there are some fierce barrackers at places like East Lancs and Lowerhouse and Bacup aren't there?"
"I don't mean them," my pal replied, "I'm thinking of the stick your own lot give you."
I told Steve I wasn't available, cut the announced teams out of he Observer listings that weekend as a souvenir which i still have and quite rightly never got picked again.
Today I'll joke that I was dropped for the pro for the first league game and never got my place back but I admit here and now it was all too intimidating for me.
Another pal once speculated whether I was among the best second eleven players who never got a game with the firsts. With my natural journalistic wherewithal I turn that round and instead of regretfully ruminating, I wonder instead if I'd have been the worst first-teamer ever and cut my losses.
That's why I never criticise amateur cricketers. When I get together with old team-mates and club pals we often speculate that our seconds from the 1980s would more than hold its own in the current First XI Second Division.
But that's all for bar-room chat and idle speculation - top and bottom of it, I had a slight chance, decided not to pursue it, have never really regretted it and I'm just glad that at 66 I'm able to still be able to float around on the periphery, be some use and help out as requested.
It's been an absolute pleasure and privilege to score for Accy (and Cherry Tree) this season and if health and eyesight don't fail me, I'll be happy to carry on in 2026, which will be my 59th year of following cricket.
Accrington's final-day victory, drawn out as it was on a rain-soaked afternoon was remarkable in several aspects.
Firstly, what a credit to the lads who work on the ground that the playing surface held out and drained well enough to allow play despite more than two hours of stoppages and delays.
Both teams had reason to want to play and two willing umpires gave it every chance when all elsewhere had headed for the bars and cars.
Jacob Clarke wanted to win to carry on a fine run and ensure finishing out of what they used to call the "re-election spots" and Harwood's Stuart Maher knew that with no-results prevalent elsewhere, a 12-point win could move his side up from seventh to a remarkable third in the dying embers of the season.
Professional Jurie Snyman needed 24 for a personal milestone of 1,000 league runs for Accrington.
The visitors posted a competitive 184 all out from just short of what turned out to be their eventual 36-over allocation. I was particularly touched by the youngster given out leg before who I overheard back in the pavilion tell his mates "yes it was a good ball, swung in, I think I was out." He'll soon learn to be more cynical than that!
Jacob claimed his third five-for of the league season, Ali Hasham polished the innings off with the last two wickets and Noah Cronshaw effected the run out of William Armer whose dad Alan misjudged a quick single. It was the second family run out I'd seen in the weekend after Cherry Tree's Ziyad Bhada ran his brother, pro Min, out at Walkden on Saturday.
Remarkably, with the target reduced to 125 off 20 after another downpour, Jurie wasn't needed. Just three weeks after coming in to bat with three figures on the board for the first time, he would be delighted to watch the amateur batsmen share the responsibility with considerable aplomb.
Graeme Sneddon got us away to a brisk start as per the plan, not without a bit of playing and missing as Harwood pro De Silva still worked up a head of steam despite the damp.
When he departed in the seventh over Jacob joined Ali Hasham to share an unbroken stand of 93 to see us home.
It wasn't without complications - with about six or seven overs remaining the sun which had been brighter than it had all day at six o'clock, fell rapidly and the recalled De Silva, pitching a fair few short in the now very dark conditions and suddenly finding the need to adjust bootlaces on a regular basis, became even more of a handful. I'm not sure that someone who castled Jurie neck and crop first ball in June really needed to resort to that.
But the boys must have been able to see more than I could from the box as a flurry of boundaries took us home. For the second week running the game concluded in light which would have seen Dickie Bird back in his hotel in dressing gown and slippers. Ali Hasham looks to have staked a claim to a permanent opening berth with a second 50 in three weeks.
I couldn't have been more chuffed for the boys and I'm sure Jurie slept soundly on the plane back to South Africa on Monday with 976 league runs, a bagful in sundry other competitions and hundreds sub-pro'ing elsewhere. Can't wait to see him again next April and see who lines up with him.
I've said all season there's a basis of a side there - six amateurs: Ali, Jacob, Haratbar, Nathaniel Young, Jon Hayhurst and Abbas Ahmad scored half centuries (three, Ali, Jacob and Nathaniel scored two) in the league, not to mention Emile's in the Worsley Cup and Sned's spectacular T20 fifty.
With maybe another bowler capable of taking three or four wickets regularly and a bit of improvement fielding and catching, I think as one senior player said to me at weekend "it feels like something is happening."
Now we have months of awaiting news on Nigel Stockley's League website. Signings, pros, player movement, anything as long as it passes the winter along. Yes, even club presentation night.
Maybe some teams will begin 2026 with disciplinary penalties imposed - I've certainly witnessed things gone on this season which looked worse than anything both Accy sides began 2025 with penalties for.
I have one more game with Cherry Tree this weekend as the NWCL attempt to emulate the barmy first-class schedule by carrying on until the back end of September.
We entertain Astley Bridge to end the season. Last Saturday's second visit in a month to Walkden (due to a shortage of teams you play some sides three times) got away late but only lasted 14 overs during which Cherry made 66 for three, Ziyad partly atoning for his family run-out indiscretion by posting 44 not out.
It was good to see Ken and Craig Fergusson present, Ken babysitting Craig's lad James as Church's Craig umpired at the start of his next cricketing career phase. I've seen him do a couple of games and he looks like hell be as good as his dad. One of the best as well as one of the most talented and nicest fellas I played with.
Our love of Rovers means. We see one another regularly away from cricket too but It was poignant for me seeing Ken and Maureen look after the youngster - I well remember watching a virtually infant Craig copying his dad's technique with a tiny bat around 40 years ago, me and Damian Joyce on the balcony at Haslingden chuckling as he essayed mirror-image left-handed versions of the shots his dad was playing out in the middle.
Circle of life eh?
We all cheered the Rovers winner at Watford as we awaited the inevitable rained off verdict and it's lovely to report that young Aussie Hudson Walshaw, who was also at Walkden, will be playing for Cherry Tree as-overseas amateur next year. He has made a favourable impression at East Lancs where he got struck in and had to take the captaincy on early in the campaign despite his youth. He will enjoy Cherry Tree and we will enjoy having him.
Needless to say I managed to take the wrong road out of Walkden and did an extensive tour of inner and outer Bolton to get home in the car I recently shelled out 600 quid to fix after my post-Colne M65 breakdown.
My scoring fees might have to go up next season.
Last week's Quiz answers- Mas Ahmed, Mo Yusuf Ali, Patrick Swanney
This week's but remember you might have to wait till next April for the answer if nothing happens this weekend.
Next year Nigel will be posting reminiscences of 2026 in his 50 years ago spots on the website. In that long hot summer of 1976 Malcolm Taylor and John Swanney scored almost 900 league runs between them but which Accrington player is actually listed higher in the averages with three innings, two not outs and 33 runs in total?
