Yorkshire play down crowd disturbance

Yorkshire have said that they will be taking no further action after their second-team match against Bradford-Leeds UCCE at Bradford Park Avenue was abandoned following crowd trouble. Umpires called the game off after a number of spectators started abusing Yorkshire's John Blain.

The incident occurred when Blain dismissed Kez Ahmed as Yorkshire closed in on victory. Reports indicate that Blain and Ahmed exchanged words and the situation deteriorated from there, with Blain's team-mates rushing from the changing-room to help as spectators turned on him.

A friend of Blain's told The Scotsman that someone, "made a phone call to some friends after John got him [Ahmed] out and before anyone knew what was happening a couple of car-loads of guys arrived."

"It was just one of those things," Robin Smith, Yorkshire's chairman, told the Yorkshire Post. "We have looked into the matter and have no reason to suspect that it will happen again. If we felt that this type of behaviour was going to be a feature of a particular venue, we would take appropriate steps. That is not the case with Park Avenue and the matter is closed as far as we're concerned.

"Sadly, it was just another example of the type of moronic behaviour that is all too prevalent in society these days," he continued. "We saw problems during the Test match at Headingley when people had too much to drink and started causing disturbances in the West Stand, and I'm afraid it's simply an indictment of the age in which we live."

David Byas, Yorkshire's director of cricket, told the newspaper that the umpires' decision to abandon the game was the right one. "It seems that [it was] the only reasonable course of action and I'm satisfied that they took the appropriate decision."

The incident was another blow for Bradford Park Avenue's bid to retain its close links with Yorkshire. Although it is the venue for the county's Centre of Excellence, it has been blighted by vandalism and there are understood to be moves to relocate the centre to Leeds University in 2005. Park Avenue once epitomised Yorkshire cricket, but its glory days are long gone.