Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2022

18 following week we would have gone on holiday to Scarborough! But, back to cricket and a little shop on the corner of John Street and Shoreham Street. It’s still there and every time I go to Bramall Lane now I glance in its direction and remember because I know full well the rst time I ever went in there. ey don’t do Eccles cakes and bottles of Tizer now but they did back in 1958, and I certainly relieved them of both in the following years whenever I went to cricket at the Lane. Anyway, into the ground and all I can think is this... my Dad must have borrowed a ticket from a Yorkshire member because he wasn’t a member until many years later. at’s because we were in the pavilion. Now memory can play tricks, and someone may well say my memory has done, but I am sure we were on the top level. If that was reserved purely for committee, o cials and associated hangers-on, then I’ll accept that and drop down one. But I can well remember to this day looking down on the Somerset team coming out onto the eld once the rain had stopped. And, like everyone else, the eye went straight to two of them who weren’t in whites. ey were their two Australians, Bill Alley and Colin McCool. One of them was wearing a big overcoat, a Sou’wester and wellies. e other had a mop and a bucket. It was their nod to the She eld weather and to raise a laugh. Which it did. In my mind’s eye I can see those two now pretending to ‘mop up’, reaching out a hand, palm upturned, as they looked up to the grey skies. It was chuckle time for spectators. Two characters brightening things up with what, I suppose, was 1950s slapstick. Not sure Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc would be hamming it up quite the same in 2021. Funny what sticks with you, eh, because the rest doesn’t other than I vividly remember Ken Taylor and Phil Sharpe walking down the steps and out on the eld to open the batting. To me, they were like two gladiators entering the arena. I was actually seeing Yorkshire players, casting eyes on two Gods. It’s a pity I can’t recall anything else. So, to see what my memory has forgotten, I checked out the scorecard ahead of doing this piece. Some very, very interesting stu emerged. Sharpe scored 141 that day - his rst century and leaving well behind his previous best of 56. He put on 129 with Taylor who made 63. e scorecard reminds me that I saw only two other Yorkshire batsmen that day in Doug Padgett, 47 not out, and, very brie y, Brian Close because he was 0 not out as Yorkshire closed that rst day on 258-2. I suppose quite a few people will see a century the rst time they clapped eyes on Yorkshire but wouldn’t reckon too many will have forgotten they did. But it was the other little stats and facts which Bill Alley at the crease.