We have a guest contribution to share today from Locky, who has provided the following article looking back at a Butcher Cup game from back before Play Cricket (and many of you) were around. For anyone unaware, the Butcher Cup is a local T20 competition played between teams in and around Dronfield, and at one time had 8 teams enter and were exciting games to be a part of. Enjoy.
When the Butcher
Cup committee brought in a rule to restrict bowlers to a maximum of 4 overs, I
was against this decision for two reasons. Firstly this lowered the standard of the cricket
on offer as weaker bowlers were brought into action. Secondly it handed an even bigger advantage
to the stronger team. Under the old system the best two bowlers in
the team would invariably bowl ten overs each unless they got injured or were
bowling particularly badly. This meant that if your best two bowlers had a good
night, one batsmen in your team managed to score a fifty and the rest of your
team fielded like trojans, then you had a chance of winning any game no matter
who you played against. As happened to Coal Aston in the Butcher Cup final of
1995.
Coal
Aston’s opponents that night were Dronfield Contact, arch rivals of the older
members of the club although the actual players of the time got along
reasonably well. The reasons for the antagonism were too complex to understand
but had built up over the years and the scars ran deep. Dronfield at the time
were firmly established in the South Yorkshire Premier League and boasted the
likes of Adam Marsh, Ryan Williams (who both had spells on Derbyshire’s
professional books), Roger Bird and Andy Myers. In contrast, we were
languishing in the third tier of the South Yorkshire League and, in truth, were
only there because of our two outstanding players John Muncey and Julian
Bradwell. Facilities were looking tired and had barely altered since being
built in the late sixties, a number of senior players had recently retired and
more alarmingly, we had no junior section at the time since Gerry Bradwell’s
recent retirement after a remarkable twenty years at the helm.
On
the morning of the match, captain Kevin Smith received a phone call from John
Muncey informing him that he would be unable to play as his wife had been taken
into labour. John Muncey was a very well respected performer with both bat and
ball, a former first team captain, a mainstay of the club throughout the
eighties and nineties, in fact one of the best players ever to play for Coal
Aston. He was replaced by Simmo.
Just
when captain Kevin thought things couldn’t get any worse he arrived at the
ground to find out that his second ace in the pack Julian Bradwell was nowhere
to be seen. This was in the days before mobile phones. A laid back character,
Julian was reminiscent of David Gower in his approach to cricket and life in
general. Turning up late was nothing new for Julian but when he eventually
arrived five minutes before the start of play, even he was cutting things a bit
fine. He rushed across the boundary, got changed and padded up and went out to
open the innings with Dillon. He was out first ball. The gentlemanly Dillon was
dismissed soon after, walking to a nick behind that nobody else had heard.
An increasingly
agitated Kevin’s options were slowly running out. Kevin was a very committed
first team captain who wore his heart on his sleeve. So committed in fact, that
I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had complained to John Muncey about
a lack of commitment. So he was feeling the pressure.
He needn’t have
worried. Up stepped a young Andrew Watson to save the day with a timely fifty,
spurred on no doubt by the fact that he had gone to school with half the
Dronfield side and was a particularly close mate of Roger Bird. Butcher Cup
specialist Peter Havenhand bludgeoned a quick twenty or thirty, and myself and
Tony Cookson scampered a few singles at the back end of the innings. This left us with a score of around 100 to 110.
Respectable, but with leading bowler Muncey missing and with Dronfield’s
star-studded batting line-up we were still massively second favourites.
Up
stepped the next heroes of the night. Brian Hemstalk, by now the second team
captain and at the veteran stage of his cricketing career, bowled a miserly
spell of 10 overs with hardly a bad ball sent down. A very accomplished local
footballer and a regular bowler of 23 overs a game on a Saturday, this was no
problem to Brian. While at the other end Julian atoned for his earlier
misdemeanours with 10 overs of masterful slow to medium paced leg-spin. Despite
his calm appearance, there was a competitive edge to Julian.
Backed
up by a faultless fielding performance, Dronfield were bowled out short of
their target. Two particularly memorable catches were taken off the highest
‘skiers’ ever seen at Stonelow. One by Tony Cookson who hilariously danced a
jig of relief rather than delight. The other by the magnificent cricketing
character Chris Holloway. Before the days of Play Cricket, Chris had two
cricket clubs, one in his native Cornwall as well as Coal Aston. Once after
playing for his Cornwall club on the Saturday he drove up to Aston Hall to play
for us in a first team cup match the very next day as we were short. In the bar
afterwards he was complaining that he had driven all the way up, got caught at
first slip first ball, and now had to drive all the way back to Cornwall. Alan
Beecroft consoled him with the words ‘at least you hit it’.
I
don’t know who took the wickets and I doubt if Brian or Julian could tell you
either, statistics weren’t as important as they seem to be nowadays. I have
mentioned ten players but unfortunately do not know the other one, my apologies
to you as all 11 players played their part. I suspect it could have been Peter
Millington or more likely his brother James. As you may have noticed I have
also added approximate scores as there is no record of this game, only
memories. Neither do I know who the man of the match award went to, although I
always found this to be a bit of a lottery at Butcher Cup Finals.
With
the cup lifted by Kevin, it was off to the Daggers for hand-pulled Tetleys and
bread and dripping to share our achievement with our delighted supporters and the
rest of the village. The cricket club supported the local pub and the locals
supported the cricket club, indeed the annual race-night was created as a thank
you to the regulars for their moral and financial support throughout the
season. Beeky’s mates were unimpressed. Monday night was darts night and he was
late. Brian’s work wasn’t finished as he negotiated a lock-in with landlord
Chris Laver, a rare occurrence in those days. I liked Chris as a landlord. A
farmer in his spare time, a lot of the locals used to complain that he was more
interested in his cows than the pub, but overlooked the fact that his hobby had
the added bonus of being able to buy fresh eggs from behind the bar. And
anyway, the bar was always looked after by his more than capable wife Rachael.
As news of Brian’s lock-in spread, Beeky was back from the tap room. So were
the other usual suspects Gerry, Cooky,Dillon, Simmo and myself amongst others. A
club needs people like Simmo and he deserved his winner’s medal for his
impeccable availability although, like the statistics, the experience was more
important than the medal. I suspect the bread and dripping was more important
than the experience for Simmo. We were right to make the most of our victory as
it was to be 11 years before we would be here celebrating another Butcher Cup
victory. Or rather in the Royal Oak after a controversial move of headquarters.
