Vaux Northern League: Horridge fumes as Chorley miss title by a whisker (15 Sep 1997)

15 September

Vaux Northern League: Horridge fumes as Chorley miss title by a whisker

Lancashire Evening Telegraph

CHORLEY missed out on the Vaux Northern League Championship by the narrowest of margins in a controversial finish to the season.

And the manner of the league's conclusion left Chorley skipper Roland Horridge fuming with his Fleetwood counterpart's actions.

The three-way title race came to a tremendous climax on Saturday with the results of the two key matches at St Anne's and Chorley - and the destiny of the championship - in doubt until the last two balls of the final over at each venue.

It all ended with Netherfield and Chorley level on 107 points at the top of the table and Fleetwood third on 106 but the Kendal club are champions by virtue of having won 10 matches to Chorley's nine.

Chorley posted 190-7 against Fleetwood at Windsor Park, Neil Senior top scoring with 63 and Gordon Lee adding a vital 30 in the closing overs.

Fleetwood made a bright start but Keith Eccleshare captured the crucial wicket of professional Jimmy Maher for 35 with the score on 81. A hart-hitting 79 from Nick Coultas put the visitors well on target for victory until he was brilliantly caught on the boundary. But Fleetwood needing 48 from 8 overs with 6 wickets standing, steadily subsided to 175-8. Victory for either side would have brought the title but Fleetwood gave up the run chase when 16 were needed from the last two overs.

At St Anne's, Netherfield's target was 225 and at one stage they were cruising to the Championship with 177-3. But a clatter of wickets left them struggling and they eventually settled for a two point draw with eight wickets down, gambling heavily on the draw at Chorley.

The two skippers at Windsor Park not surprisingly held opposite views on the stalemate in their game. Fleetwood's Tony Hesketh said: "Championships have to be earned and we felt that we could no longer win and didn't want to simply hand the title to Chorley."

Home skipper Roland Horridge was critical of Fleetwood's failure to see out the run chase. "The Fleetwood captain won the toss, put us in and elected to chase. In my opinion he has denied his team their last chance of the Championship today. If we had been in their position we would have chased the runs all the way down the order. What's the point of doing anything else?" Darwen finished fifth in the Vaux Northern League after taking three points from their rain-affected draw at Preston yesterday.

And, with St Annes reaching the final of the Lancashire Cup, that should be high enough to see them qualify for the county tournament next season.

A number of overs were lost to the weather before Darwen made 105-7, Gareth Cordingley the top scorer with 30.

Substitute professional Billy Stelling then took 2-26 from 12 overs and young Andrew Mercer 3-19 from 13 as Preston were restricted to 64-6.

Source :: Lancashire Evening Telegraph (https://www.reednews.co.uk/let/)