Rain can't dampen the spirit of the weekend cricketer

The scene of men waiting impatiently for the clock to tick round to Cricket Time – and wives eagerly anticipating the moment when the avid cricketer is finally out from under her feet – is repeated up and down the land. We like to think that it is only here in the North where it is done, but my own travels reveal the same scene played out from Birmingham to Devon.

It is only in the North, however, that it is done with a certain degree of intensity and gravitas. That was the belief, true or false as it may be, that sent Harry Pearson off on a journey of discovery during last year's wet and poor excuse for a summer.

"I have a very understanding family," admits Pearson, who found himself out early and back late every Saturday for about five months.

Pearson, who stands at well over 6ft tall, was at one time a useful bowler in a league down in London. When we talk, he is excited about making an appearance the following day on the much-loved radio institution Test Match Special, during the neutral Headingley Test match between Pakistan and Australia. His excitement is tinged with a sadness that will be understood by anyone who puts on a pair of cricket spikes tomorrow.

"It's going to be great, but I always hoped I'd be on it one day for my bowling exploits," he says.

Weekend cricketers. While age wearies us, the passion never fades, and the belief that one day we will raise our bats for a first century or buy a jug to celebrate a five-for is what makes us dedicate every summer Saturday to the duel on the cricket field.

"That's what I found, people who just couldn't leave the game alone," says Pearson.

"There was one guy who was in his seventies and worked on a ground. I asked him why he kept turning out. He said that he thinks about giving up, but he said, 'I keep coming back. I can't leave cricket, it's given me so much, this is my way of repaying the game'.

"There was very much a sense that club cricket gives people so much

that they feel they have to keep going back and repaying a debt."

Guardian columnist Pearson is an avid sports fan. He began writing for the football magazine When Saturday Comes two decades ago and has since written seven books, mainly about his love of football.

Slipless in Settle, A Slow Turn Around Northern Cricket is his first foray into cricket books.

The idea first came from childhood reminiscences of seeing top-class cricketers playing in the local leagues around Middlesbrough. "The amazing thing was that it wasn't unusual to see ex-Test players – or future Test players – in these teams that you could go along and watch for a couple of quid."

Slipless in Settle is more than a sports-book cum-travelogue. It is a paean to long summer days and to a game which inspires dedication and love.

He writes: "In the North, all cricket, whether it was the high-end stuff played by Constantine and Barnes, or the Wednesday evening games set up for shopkeepers and farmers, was played in leagues. Here all cricket was competitive, often ferociously so."

The only downside to Pearson's summer was that the rain blighted so many games – although surprisingly few were entirely lost to the weather.

His recollections of a trip to Bacup Cricket Club are typical – the chapter begins with the words, "It was pouring down in Hasleden".

The Lancashire league club once boasted former West Indian bowler Andy Roberts, who played his first game for the team in 1981 – being driven to the ground by his captain behind a snowplough.

Pearson says: "It was pouring down when I arrived and I was being

sarcastic when I asked if there would be any play – but the rain

stopped and as soon as the time for the toss-up came, the players were out on the pitch."

The most important thing Pearson found, however, was that while there is a truth at the heart of the image of Northern club cricket being relentlessly hard, people who play the game are welcoming. "I think that's the one thing I'll take away from the summer. The friendliness I encountered from everyone I met really will stick with me."

n Slipless in Settle is published by Little Brown, 12.99. To order from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop call 0800 0153232 or www.yorkshire postbookshop. co.uk. P&P is 2.75.