Name-dropping in Scarborough (20 July 1999)

20 July 1999

Name-dropping in Scarborough

Martin Searby

The seaside town of Scarborough is world-renowned for its cricket festival and at a dinner on the Spa tomorrow night 400 guests will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the North Yorkshire club who have played host to so many world-class players.

Yorkshire's championship meeting with Northamptonshire, starting today, is the centrepiece of a week-long programme of matches and yesterday Sir Tim Rice's XI played a Scarborough International XI in a game which must have resembled the first outing of the club on some land a few yards north of the present ground.

Cricket owes a huge debt to John Bell, the landlord of the Queen's Hotel in North Marine Road, who could have had little idea of what he was starting when he opened the batting in the first fixture.

Twenty-one years later the festival matches started, though not on the present ground, with Lord Londesborough's XI playing 'Buns' Thornton's XI, and have provided immense pleasure since. Before the advent of one-day cricket, Thornton, H D 'Shrimp' Leveson-Gower, Tom Pearce and latterly Brian Close provided strong teams to play the tourists but, as ever in the modern game, money had the final say and the festival cannot afford the demands of visiting Test teams.

The two other traditional fixtures, Gentlemen v Players and Yorkshire v MCC, have also gone, but the festival still has an important place on the calendar.

The ground, one of the best in the country for spectators, allows an intimacy absent in the concrete cathedrals of Lord's, the Oval or Headingley and many of the game's greats, such as Len Hutton, Denis Compton, Don Bradman and his all-conquering Australians, have been seen in action at close quarters and mingled with the public.

The pitch was popular with players because it provided a top-class three-day strip and under the stewardship of Bernard Pearson as groundsman it produced some marvellous cricket, not least because he refused to use the Surrey loam which was virtually forced on other counties. For many years, piles of it lay under the stand and the game was better for it.

The hospitality was also legendary and apart from the local council's splendid receptions, the club tent provided long lunches which had the added attraction of conversation with distinguished former players such as the late Godfrey Evans, who always had an engaging tale to tell.

When the press emerged blinking into the sunlight on one occasion, Ken Rutherford, the New Zealander, had scored 317 from 230 balls against D B Close's XI, a feat which was a great surprise to those who had partied with him the night before, and many an account was written based almost entirely on hearsay and Rutherford's own sketchy recollection.

Scarborough, however, is not just about festivals and the club run three teams and a junior side, the seniors playing in the Yorkshire League. David Byas, the Yorkshire captain, made a stack of runs for them and Chris Clifford, who also played for Warwickshire as well as standing for Geoff Cope in the county side, is still taking wickets. Scarborough has done cricket proud down the years.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)