sporting bygones: 200th anniversary of cricket in Ripon is only half the story

OF all the games we play and watch, cricket is perhaps the one woven most tightly into the fabric of the region's society and it is never less than fascinating to explore the history whenever the opportunity arises.

So when a note arrived from Peter Squires, former England rugby international, for a while a promising young batsman and outstanding fielder in Yorkshire's colours and now proud president of Ripon Cricket Club advising that the latter would be celebrating 200 years of playing the game this summer it was time to go back in time.

The history of the game and the part it has played in Yorkshire life has been well researched and chronicled, not least by staff and students at Huddersfield University under the leadership of Peter Davies, and it is generally accepted that Heworth is the oldest cricket club in Yorkshire, having been founded in 1784.

There remains some doubt, though, as to whether the club represented Heworth or York and that issue – as you would expect among Yorkshire cricketing tribes – is still open to debate.

What is clear from a strip of parchment dating back to the 18th century is that a group of enthusiasts for the game whose popularity had spread from Broadha'penny Downs and the Hambleton club pledged: "We whose names are hereto subscribed do agree to meet on Heworth Moor every Tuesday and Friday morning at four o'clock until the fifth day of September next for the purpose of playing cricket, to play for one penny a game and to fine three pence if not within sight of the wickets each morning before the Minster clock strikes five."

So the members of Yorkshire's first cricket club played before they went to work but the explosion of interest in the game, which led to Yorkshire having more cricket clubs than any other county in the land, came much later.

By 1810, when Ripon came into existence, there were already several clubs playing the game, often for substantial prize money with heavy betting always associated with their games.

If we take Heworth/York as the first, the consensus seems to be that the running order after them in terms of longevity is Hallam, Ripon, Otley, Lascelles Hall, Knaresborough, Dalton, Armitage Bridge and Harrogate.

One area in which Ripon broke new ground in Yorkshire's cricket history is that they claim to be the first club in the region to abandon the practice of recording the number of runs scored by cutting notches on a stick.

Instead, they began to use a scorebook, thus being able to not only count the number of runs scored in an innings but also the individual scores. In 1836 the club produced a book detailing all their matches from 1813, the first being against York on the Knavesmire, which Ripon won by an innings and 93 runs.

Three years later, during a period when Ripon had one of the strongest sides in the county and included players from the All England XI, a match was played against Nottingham for 150 a side.

The club settled in their present home in Studley Road in 1875 and their exquisite, colonial-style pavilion was built in 1902. Today Ripon's first XI play in the York and District Senior League with the second and third teams being members of the Nidderdale League.

Leagues were undreamed of in the days when Ripon, Heworth, York and the rest were playing their early cricket. Then it was a game played largely by the gentry, usually on land made available by a young man from the aristocracy or the local squire. But its appeal to the growing working class was also apparent, with the Leeds Mercury reporting in 1802 that "a game of crickets (sic), between 11 workmen employed by the factory of Messrs Smith, Knowles, Creswick, Tate and Co at Sheffield and 11 men employed by the factory of Messrs Goodman, Gainsford and Fairburn" had taken place for a stake of 11 guineas.

Cricket then was as much a social occasion as a game, keen though the play must have been with such sidestakes and gambling involved. When Ripon and York met on the Knavesmire it was reported that the "gentlemen dined at the stand betwixt innings" while their match against Sheffield Wednesday involved a purse of 90 sovereigns.

The Industrial Revolution triggered the explosion of interest in cricket among the working men of Yorkshire, not least among the handloom weavers in the Huddersfield area, as has been recorded by, among others, Robert Light (*) in his thesis for a PhD at De Montfort University on the development of cricket in West Yorkshire.

He tells of how these poorly-paid men developed a fascination and aptitude for the game which fitted perfectly into their demanding lifestyle. Self-employed, they could work early in the mornings during the summer months then late into the evening, using the long daylight hours to hone their skills both in practice and in the middle.

It was not long before clubs like Lascelles Hall and Dalton were producing excellent cricketers, men who could earn good money for appearing in teams made up largely of middle-class gentlemen.

Thus began the practice of professional cricketers playing for several clubs in a season, strengthening their otherwise amateur line-ups for money matches, as well as their own before the advent of organised cricket leagues.

Dalton, formed six years after Lascelles Hall in 1831, was home to George Armitage, George, John and Joseph Berry, Andrew and Joseph Crossland, William Kaye and Joshua Thomas, all of whom played for the earliest teams to represent Yorkshire.

Lascelles Hall was even more prolific, with 21 players from the club appearing for Yorkshire during the 19th century.

Yet cricket, for all that it added to their income, did not make them rich. One Lascelles Hall man, John Thewlis, played against Birkenshaw wearing his overcoat and said the opposition "shouted at me to doff my coat but I was not going to show them the holes in my shirt."

The popularity of cricket grew and organised sport – including football, in both association and Rugby forms – became linked to the civic pride of county, city, town and village; every community had its cricket club and the game we know today was created.

Those who played in the dawn light on Heworth Moor and their counterparts who oversaw the birth of the 200-year-old Ripon club could not have comprehended what they were starting.

(*) Cricket's Forgotten Past: A social and cultural history of the game in the West Riding of Yorkshire 1820-1870 by Robert Light.