‘The last in that bed was Derek Randall…’: The Cricket Societies in the UK – Almanack

There is something melancholy about a cricket clubhouse in winter. Among the dead wasps lie the abandoned dreams of warmer times, while a lugubrious scent of mildewed pads mixes with a bitter hint of wintergreen and bass notes of linseed oil. Yet once a month people gather here, trudging through the sludgy blackness on days when the sun is on a zero-hours contract and summer little more than a rumour. They will warm the old place up again, and briefly it will seem like a July afternoon when rain has stopped play, and there is no game to interrupt the chatter with wickets, boundaries or other trifles. Because, with cricket, there’s a sense that memory is more glistering than reality.

These stalwarts are members of the cricket societies that dot the map from Edinburgh to Bournemouth, Bristol to Chester-le-Street. They meet, generally once a month, when the summer game has followed the swifts in search of bluer skies. They are diehard county members in the main, as hefted to the pavilion benches of Trent Bridge, Old Trafford or Taunton as sheep to their patch of purple moorland. These are the people you see huddled outside Grace Road ten minutes before the gates open on a frosty April morning at the start of the Championship. They are likely to be retired, and predominantly (though by no means exclusively) male; they may acknowledge the need for change, but rarely celebrate it. Test, county and grassroots cricket in its traditional forms is the focus, and references to The Hundred do not draw high fives; the letters E, C and B elicit sarcastic chuckles.

But genuine laughter is never far away. Mention of certain cricketers inevitably produces a torrent of anecdotes. If you reckon you’ve heard every story there is about the legendary toughness of Brian Close, think again: go to a meeting of any cricket society, and I guarantee you will learn another.

It’s not just nostalgic chatter and grumbling about the modern world, though. Many societies put on coaching sessions for children, organise indoor nets, raise money for charity and hand out annual awards to promising young cricketers. They also act as a connection between county players and supporters, fostering the sense that the counties are clubs in more than name alone.

They have a more serious function, too. Isolation is an increasing problem, particularly for the elderly male. Cricket societies bring people together, providing a focus in midwinter, when the darkness can be as much psychological as real. “We are a bit of a lifeline for some of our members,” secretaries will tell you – with a sympathetic smile towards the fellow with a carrier bag full of vintage scorecards.

The first attempt to bring together like-minded cricket followers for evenings of merry discussion on topics such as the middle names of famous West Indian batsmen, or the abysmal first-class record of Jammu & Kashmir, probably came with the launch of the Cricketana Society – not that they would have dwelled on either in 1929. Discussion was more concerned with books, art, memorabilia, trophies and so forth. Amazingly, this proved too fringe even for cricket fanatics, and the gatherings dried up long before Hitler invaded Poland. (Since 1987, the gap has thankfully been filled by The Cricket Memorabilia Society.)

During the Second World War, servicemen and women had sometimes found relief from the grind and horror by clustering together and waxing lyrical about Fred Root’s run-up – or arguing over how many innings were needed for a first-class average. When peace returned, an advert in The Cricketer drew 29 enthusiasts to 15 Great Scotland Yard for the inaugural meeting of what would become The Society of Cricket Statisticians. Around three years later, they broadened their base to include other enthusiasts, and changed their name to The Cricket Society.

This happened in 1948, nine months after the formation in Leeds of the Northern Cricket Society (and doubtless led to bristling in the Broad Acres about the use of the definite article). The result was a relationship traditionally described as “mistrustful”. At the helm of the Northern Cricket Society for their first three decades was Ron Yeomans, “one of the world’s most ardent cricket enthusiasts”, according to the journalist AJ Forrest in his 1957 book, Village Cricket. Yeomans was a tough West Riding man with a Truemanesque attitude to swanky southerners.

In a semi-infamous article in Wisden 1979, Yeomans declared that more than half of all cricket societies lay north of the Trent. Indeed, he devoted almost the entire piece to anecdotes from the North, dismissing the southern contingent – including not only The Cricket Society but those in Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, Somerset and many others – in less than a paragraph. (The following year, editor Norman Preston felt moved to offer a clarification-cumapology for the benefit of southern readers.)

Despite his square-jawed, we-don’t-play-for-fun image, Yeomans had a whimsical side. It was under his guidance that the Northern Cricket Society organised a Boxing Day match in 1949, staged ever since (pausing only for Covid), often in conditions so cold even Close wore a long-sleeved sweater.

The Cricket Society, who to the annoyance of hardcore Yorkies claim on their website to have been founded in 1945, are unashamedly metropolitan, though they now have branches in the South-West, Midlands and North-East. However, being based in one of the world’s great cities gives them a reach that Leeds, for all its harrumphing (and Harvey Nichols) has never quite matched. The Cricket Society have 2,000 members and the Northern Cricket Society around 600 – though since most are from Yorkshire, they might be judged their equal in quality, at least by some.

No matter who got there first, the idea of cricket societies caught on. The Wombwell Cricket Lovers’ Society were founded in 1951, the Cricket Society of Scotland a year later. Lancashire & Cheshire Cricket Society held their first meeting in 1953, Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society in 1960 and Chesterfield Cricket Society in 1963. The Council of Cricket Societies (now the Cricket Societies’ Association) met for the first time in York in 1969, and helped broker a peace between north and south, though Yeomans’s Wisden article suggests it was, as they say, “uneasy”.

Yeomans lists 29 societies, including several that no longer exist, or are at least no longer members of the CSA: not all want to join, and the Halifax Society, for example, remain proudly independent. But Dewsbury’s Heavy Woollen Cricket Society, as well as groups in Doncaster, Rotherham,Todmorden and Blackley, have turned out the lights. Their departure echoes the disappearance of so many Yorkshire outgrounds, reflecting perhaps less a diminution of interest than a greater ability to travel. Others, too, have passed into oblivion, including some distinctly un-northern (and not just geographically) societies at Cambridge University, Dulwich College and Uppingham School. And in 2023, Merseyside Cricket Society sadly followed suit.

But new societies have also sprung up, and the CSA currently have around 30 members. Dorset Cricket Society, founded in 2002, are the youngest. Their origins lie in the opening that year of the Dorset Cricket Centre at Hurn Bridge, near Christchurch. Richard Mockridge, who had been instrumental in getting it built, needed volunteers, and he started the society as a way of recruiting them. Membership has steadily risen and now stands at about 70. They meet every Thursday afternoon from October to March. Afterwards, those attending have the option of a session in the indoor nets.

Other societies owe their existence to similar happenstance. Norfolk were founded in 1985 when a group of supporters took shelter in a marquee after a shower interrupted play at Lakenham. They enjoyed the chat so much they made it (though not the tent) a regular thing: they now meet at Horsford Cricket Club. In 1950, a few days after West Indies had won a Test in England for the first time, a set of friends were drinking in the Lord’s Tavern when they resolved to do something for less fortunate youngsters – and the Lord’s Taverners were born. Wombwell sprang from an evening at the Sir George’s Arms in September 1951, when Arthur Johnson and a handful of friends gathered round a table to listen to the yarns of Yorkshire’s truculent spinner Johnny Wardle. One of the pals was Jack Sokell, a left-wing employee of the Barnsley Chronicle. “To say Jack loved cricket was a bit like saying Romeo fancied Juliet, and Abelard took a shine to Heloise,” Michael Parkinson summarised.

Within a decade, the cricketers who had given talks at Wombwell read like a fantasy England XI – Patsy Hendren, Maurice Leyland, George Duckworth (who spoke by candlelight after the electricity failed), Alec Bedser, Len Hutton, Bill Bowes, Brian Statham, Jack Ikin, Fred Trueman… That this small town outside Barnsley attracted these names was down to the persuasive talents of Sokell, a man of such energy he might have been powered by an atomic reactor. Under his guiding hand, Wombwell had dinners, talks and quizzes, ran coaching sessions for local youngsters and handed out awards – as well as putting on events such as jazz nights, fashion shows, beauty contests and dances. This has seen Wombwell written in legend as the only cricket society to turn down an evening with the Beatles (they apparently wanted £50, which was considered a bit stiff for a bunch of unknowns from Liverpool).

With or without the Fab Four, attendances at meetings can be impressive. The Lancashire & Cheshire and Essex societies (based at Old Trafford and Chelmsford) regularly attract audiences of 300. Events at other societies have, to borrow a phrase from This is Spinal Tap, become more selective. Speakers – players, ex-players, coaches, umpires and writers – arrive from far and wide and are often put up in the houses of members: “The last person to sleep in that bed was Derek Randall.”

Subscriptions are low – most charge around £20 a year – and one-off attendance fees rarely more than a fiver. There are, though, fears at some societies that things cannot continue. Despite strenuous efforts to find younger members, few have actually been found. The social media generation simply aren’t joiners (you’ll hear similar complaints at everything from cycling clubs to the Women’s Institute), and Covid struck a blow to membership that was both physical and mental. People seem to have lost the habit of going out. Many societies express fears about the future, as what might politely be called natural wastage sees numbers dwindling. “We’d love you to come again in a couple of years,” they tell speakers, “… if we’re still here.”

Yet whatever the foreboding, the mood at a cricket society never stays gloomy for long: the anecdotes and wisecracks will soon be flowing. Many of the funniest stories I have heard have come from society meetings. The best – involving a famous Yorkshire umpire and a gastric catastrophe in a North-East seaside resort – still makes me laugh out loud every time I recall the punchline. Sadly, it is too long to be related here but, should you ever encounter me in a clubhouse on a winter’s evening, do ask – and I will tell you the tale.

Harry Pearson is the author of Slipless in Settle, Connie and First of the Summer Wine. He has spoken at eight cricket societies; a couple have even invited him back.

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