Even Christmas cricket and the good causes it serves can't swerve the pandemic

JAMES COYNE: Annual festive matches have had to be pulled as restrictions are imposed across the UK. But those who affected go beyond the players missing out on a winter warmer

It will be a different Christmas for many of us, with all kind of family and social events cancelled due to concern of potential transmission of Covid-19 to the more vulnerable around us.

In the last few days, it was confirmed that my club’s annual Christmas cricket match has been scrubbed this year. I imagine the same decision has been reached over similar fixtures across much of the country, certainly those areas under Tier 3 and Tier 4 restrictions.

The loss of one slightly silly winter-time cricket match is hardly catastrophic, I know, but it is nevertheless a small cut to our social fabric which, over time, would start to hurt.

Every year, at some point in the Christmas holidays, Ampthill Town CC and Flitwick CC, rival clubs in mid-Bedfordshire, have taken each other on for the glory of the Christmas Commode Trophy – better known as the Loo Seat.

The esteemed toilet seat was first presented by the former Ampthill Town president Richard Dillingham, who accurately identified a trophy befitting the standard of cricket played on the day.

To be fair, the players are somewhat hidebound by conditions – a greasy, wet artificial wicket and muddy outfield at Alameda Middle School in Ampthill. And believe me, that is no criticism. Cricket just wasn’t supposed to be played at this time of year.

We tend to play just the 12 overs a side, which means not everyone gets a bat, but all except the wicketkeeper has a bowl. I can report that keeping wicket in such conditions is not exactly a glorious position to be in either, though you do get to put on big gloves that keep you a bit warmer than everyone else.

Ian Smith, chairman of Bedfordshire CCC, organiser-in-chief at Ampthill (and a legend in our neck of the woods), tries to keep a semblance of order out in the middle.

The best thing about the day is the camaraderie, as both teams and assembled supporters – there are usually a smattering – decamp swiftly just after lunch from the school field to The Albion pub, who kindly put on a lovely spread for us aside from the other obvious refreshments available. The last stragglers usually head off for a curry before stumbling home.

So much of that could not be done this year. It was impossible to keep up the social side of the event. When Bedfordshire was in Tier 2 we’d already accepted we couldn’t gather in the pub.

The Groundsman: Pulling together (safely) when the going's tough…

And, even with the game taking place outside, there was obvious concern about the gathering of spectators, and whether players could keep a two-metre distance if the weather turned seriously cold. When we moved into Tier 3 (for just 24 hours) the die was cast and the organisers had no choice but to leave the fixture unplayed for the first time in 23 years. We will spend Christmas in Tier 4.

For us, the Loo Seat is a tradition, but a relatively new one. We can boast nothing like the antiquity of some Christmas cricket matches.

Further north, the Northern Cricket Society have played their traditional Boxing Day match in and around Leeds for 71 consecutive years. Rain, several inches of snow, hail, local flooding… none of it has stopped the match from being completed, until now. That might seem trivial in the grand scheme, but it’s a sad day for many.

Leeds first went into Tier 3 restrictions at the start of November, and the match was called off even before it was confirmed by the government a few days ago that the city would be remaining at that level.

The longtime hosts, North Leeds CC at their lovely ground next to Roundhay Park, would ordinarily open their bar for the day, but in Covid times that became harder to countenance. The club and Northern Cricket Society had little option but to cancel the game for the first time.

Chris Sawyer, NCS treasurer, said: "It is sad that the match has had to be cancelled in 2020 but we are determined it will return in 2021."

The Northern Cricket Society first put an XI out on Boxing Day in 1949. They have played at Alwoodley, Bramhope, Collingham, Thorp Arch & Boston Spa, Whitkirk and latterly North Leeds CC, who have provided ground and opposition since 1973.

These days the NCS tends to be represented by players from clubs playing in the Leeds & Wetherby League and Airedale & Wharfedale League. But in past years many glittering Yorkshire (and some England Test) cricketers have turned out for the NCS – Maurice Leyland, Arthur Wood, Johnny Lawrence, Billy Sutcliffe, Ronnie Burnett, Brian Close, Bryan Stott, Don Wilson, Chris Old, Geoff Cope, Peter Chadwick, Kevin Sharp and James Middlebrook.

A 17-year-old Brian Bolus played for Whitkirk against the NCS in 1951, and Geoffrey Boycott was a Yorkshire Colt of 21 when he played for Thorp Arch & Boston Spa in 1961.

^{Clubs won't be able to peel away the covers this winter}

Indeed, Leyland, who played in the Bodyline series and ranks as one of England’s best left-handed batsmen, captained the NCS in the inaugural match, at Collingham, where he declared to the Bradford Observer that it would be "played every year whatever the weather". Well, I guess he was right in a way.

As you’d expect, the format has changed as tastes have evolved – first it was a timed match set at 90 minutes an innings; these days it’s somewhere between 20 or 25 overs each.

Even as far back as 1949 a matting wicket, made by a Leeds firm, was laid down – and some kind of non-turf pitch is the only sensible option these days, else players risk all kind of hamstring strains.

The Bradford Observer noted in 1949 that: "Players will turn out in white flannels, but they will be allowed to wear as many sweaters as they like." The weather in West Yorkshire was apparently warm enough on Boxing Day 1949 for some spectators even to venture out without a coat, but it’s guidance that has been heeded by most down the years, especially on days of heavy snow, rain, biting winds and, recently, floods.

Such was the 1949 fixture’s novelty, news of the inaugural match earned photographs and write-ups in the Yorkshire Post and Daily Mirror, and even the Sydney Sun – where Australians basked in the glow of following their own Boxing Day Test match. However, the following year the picture was possibly more representative – players and spectators huddled around a stove.

Michael Pulford, editor of the Northern Cricket Society booklet, reports: "Rain has not called off any of the matches, including the floods of 2015 when many local roads were closed.

"In 1956 snow fell but the game still went ahead, and likewise in 1981 when much sport was called off, with the result that it was mentioned in every leading national newspaper with a front-page photograph in the Daily Telegraph and a two-page picture spread in The Yorkshire Post’s ‘Sports Monday’ supplement.

"A dozen enthusiasts saved the day by arriving at 8 am, working with shovels and brooms to clear a 22-yard strip, wide enough to take a matting cover, and also a path to the pavilion! It was actually reckoned to have been colder in 1966 and 1967."

Snow again left a wintry white coating on the pitch in 2009. Some form of low-level injuries are almost inevitable in Christmas cricket matches, which is why the sensible club members decide to stay at home with their leftover turkey.

^{Cricket and the festival period in the UK go back further than you might expect}

But for those of us diehards who just love feeling bat on ball and the chance to chat rubbish with our team-mates for a day, it’s a must.

And, in the case of the NCS match, there’s a better reason why the host clubs go to such heroic lengths to get the game on. The NCS Boxing Day cricket match is not just an act of slightly barmy indulgence – the fixture has always been synonymous with charity.

Pulford writes: "About 200 spectators attended the first game, and they included Herbert Sutcliffe, so this turnout, and repeated good attendances, must have given the Society the idea of raising funds for charity." After all, asking spectators to put money in the hat was long a staple of Saturday club matches in the northern leagues. 

Over 1,000 people watched the 1952 match at Bramhope. In 1954 proceeds of £8 (worth around £200 in 2020) was divided between the Church of England’s Children’s Society and the Leeds Children’s Holiday Camp Association. Other charities to have benefited include Abbeyfields Homes, the Wheatfields Hospice and the Lord Mayor of Leeds World Refugee Appeal.

St Gemma’s Hospice, the Leeds-based cancer charity, have been the recipients for the last two decades, with most of the £4,100 proceeds over 20 years raised from a raffle. The game usually raises around £400 each year.

So all for a good cause, you see – and one of the many small-scale but happy events in society postponed by Covid-19.

It’s telling how an article about slightly silly unseasonal cricket matches ended with a reminder of the toll felt by charities over the last nine months. At this time of year that’s something worth remembering.

Merry Christmas one and all, and very best wishes for a happier 2021.

With thanks to Michael Pulford, Chris Sawyer, Ian Smith and Matt Pateman

Gift a subscription to The Cricketer this Christmas and choose your free gift (a £20 John Lewis gift card or copy of Bob Willis: A Cricketer & A Gentleman). Subscribe here