Playing History - on the Field.

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Records are necessarily sketchy because there was no club between 1972 and 1978 and many records have been lost.

We know that in 1886 Brigstock were one of the founder members of the Kettering and District League (KADL) but we have no idea how the club got on.

By the 1920’s the club were playing in the Geddington League (GL) that was, I think, a Saturday competition. Clarence Sherratt was the scorer for Stanion and he had his father’s winning medal for 1929. He recalled that Stanion were joint winners with Brigstock. Someone also told me Brigstock won in 1936.

It is fitting that our next knowledge of playing success is in 1950 and 1953 when Clarence captained the side to success in the GL once again. In those days league winners played an ‘all league’ side the following year. On those occasions the club were presented with the league trophy following the representative game. We are fortunate to have a picture of Clarence receiving the trophy.

The club rejoined the KADL and immediately, in 1958, won Div’ 2 north.

The Captaincy passed to Harold Page and following a runners up spot in 1962, Div’ 2 north was won again in 1963

The club rejoined the GL in 1965, now a Sunday league and Hedley Ruff was a successful captain in 1967

Resignations from the GL at the end of 1969 and the KADL at the end of 1971 followed and sadly the club folded. Essentially the reason was that there were very few villages based players and the burden of running the club fell unfairly on those adults that remained.

Following interest expressed by a number of younger players there were 2 matches in the summer of 1979. On both occasions the ‘fathers’ won. But there was enough interest for former players to make a commitment to re launch the club and the first meeting was held on 21/08/79. The current members are very grateful for the efforts that were made in the period 1979 to 1982. There is a separate article that covers most of this. We played a few friendlies in 1980 and an almost complete list of friendlies in 1981 with Hedley in charge.

Brigstock rejoined the KADL in 1982.

Colin Starsmore returned to play for the village and captain the side and we immediately won Div 1B despite playing all the first season away from home.

We didn’t enjoy much success during the 1980’s as the experienced players gradually succumbed to weary limbs and the younger ones gained experience. In the premier division we finished 4th equal in 1986, 6th in 1987 and 10th in 1989. We dropped back a division in the KADL as it was reorganised. But we continued with a full list of Sunday friendlies that in particular helped the younger players develop. We also joined the Geddington Midweek League (GML) in 1985. This helped all our cricketing skills and gave some players the chance to play twice a week (and others 3 times!) we also enjoyed modest success gradually moving up the divisions, we were runners up in Div’ 5 in 1985 and won 4 in 1986.

The writer remembers 1990 as a particularly good year. The older players were experienced and a younger generation was adding vitality. We won Div’ 3 of the GML. And Div 1 of the KADL winning all our matches. In 1992 we finished 3rd in the premier division and were runners up in the cup.

There was also a lot of activity off the field during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s as we sought to improve our facilities (new Kitchen, showers, better gang mowers, lean to garage for the tractor) to get into the newly formed Northants Alliance (NACL).

Our application was successful and we joined Div 3 in 1993. We lost our first game and were then unbeaten for the rest of the year as we won the Division at the first attempt. In the next year we only lost once as we won Division 2 . The years 1990 to 1994 were perhaps the clubs most successful. Certainly Division One of the NACL was very strong at this stage (before sides could break into the County League) and the writer believes this is the best standard of cricket the club has participated in. Unfortunately we lost a couple of key players and then had to play at the top of our game to retain our Div 1 slot. But after struggling to remain in the division we finished a very creditable 4th in 1998, only to be relegated at the end of the following year.

However in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the Sunday side was enjoying mixed success because the club’s policy was to select on merit on Saturday, and give those players who missed out, a game on Sunday. Various captains, Donald Mayes, Rob Wise, John Smoker Andy Sharp and Alan Staniforth did well to keep up the enthusiasm. The tide turned in the mid 1990’s when the younger generation that was now playing twice at the weekend began to produce results.

Unfortunately this coincided with a decline in friendly cricket. Fewer sides were running a Sunday side and smaller village clubs were folding. It became harder to find a full fixture list.

The solution was to enter the Rutland League (RL) which we did in 1999.This provided a full competitive fixture list. In 2000 we finished 3rd and were promoted to Div 3 where we have remained ever since. The Rutland League is a competitive league in which attacking ‘one day’ style cricket is much more than it’s Northants Counterpart in which draws are possible and can sometimes make for a slow afternoons cricket. The RL gives no points for losing, so it’s win or bust which makes the game a lot higher paced and attacking.

The standard of those players who were used to friendly cricket improved. Moreover as league cricket was available on both days at the weekend some players found it more convenient to switch their main playing day to Sunday.It is now very rare for the club to put out it’s strongest XI whatever that team is! But it does mean that most players in the club, and we usually have about 20 playing members, are actively involved as batsmen, bowlers or keepers.

Turning back to Saturdays, a pyramid system developed in Northants cricket that was not helpful to clubs such as ours who field one side. We had been relegated (narrowly) to Division 2 of the NACL but the absence of a second team meant that we could progress no higher. Then at the end of season 2000 the NACL decided to contract to 3 divisions (including 1 reserve division) and we were one of those teams cast adrift, for reasons never satisfactorily explained; it wasn’t lack of playing ability. The Northants Combination (NC) was formed very hastily. We were runners up in 2001 and were promoted back to the NACL! But we did leave an impact as at Pete Burdett’s instigation the Combination League decided to adopt Rutland League rules that favour more attacking cricket.

Those in charge of Northants amateur cricket decided that a complete revamp was necessary and the various leagues were reorganised into one string, and reserve teams were not kept separate. As we finished runners up in NACL Division 2 in 2002 we were ‘promoted’ up the structure to Division 5 of the new Northants cricket League (NCL). We are now getting closer to the standard of cricket we played in 1995.Brigstock won Div 5 of the NCL in 2004 and thus are now promoted to Div 4 of the NCL a remarkable achievement. The whole club are looking forward to the challenge of Div 4 in 2005.

A Bamford 2003

The Meadow at Brigstock

The Meadow at Brigstock.

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