Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2023

30 Yorkshire team of the 1960s play at Bramall Lane. He remembers Trueman steaming in from the Pavilion End, shortly after his 300th Test wicket. A 12-day Festival of cricket was the only way most South Yorkshire folk would get to see their White Rose heroes with Close, Illingworth, Boycott, Hutton and Fred in unstoppable form. The county scene was a bit different from Sheffield club cricket. As Andrew recalls: ‘The pitch was flat. The grass was cut and they could throw and hit the ball a long way!’ In club cricket, he’s best known for his time at Sheffield United CC where he was the player/coach for 15 years. His overall club cricket career was one of longevity, spanning 31 consecutive seasons: ‘A fiery fast bowler who turned out to be an off- spinner!’ Cricket coaching found him when Eric Burgin, who shared the new ball with Trueman at Yorkshire for a time, saw potential in Andrew. Burgin asked him to coach at Sheffield United, despite Watson not having any qualifications. He became the Sheffield Lord’s Taverner’s Manager then moved up the coaching ladder before becoming a tutor of coaches: ‘I used to coach at Bramall Lane on a Sunday morning. There were no health and safety in those days. Bramall Lane was a leaking shed with four lanes and water dripping through everywhere!’ After Sheffield United, Andrew coached representative teams including Taverner’s and Joe Lumb sides so he’d had 20 years’ experience in the bank when the opportunity with the Yorkshire Cricket Board arose in the 90s. He laughs at the memory: ‘Our equipment when we started was a sponsored cricket bat, a clipboard, a pen and a fax machine!’ Interviewing someone like Andrew who has been there and got the t-shirt across so many aspects to recreational cricket is fascinating to listen to. We’re seeing a significant rise in women’s soft ball and hard ball teams this summer across Yorkshire. (Read my Crossflatts vs Bradford Park Avenue Ladies feature). The landscape was very different back when Andrew started developing and coaching in women’s cricket in 1987 – helping to launch four teams in South Yorkshire (three of whom are still operating today). Coach education is one of the many facets to a county cricket board. Andrew’s CV speaks to an interest and breadth: The first ever Women’s Only ECB Level 2 course; L1 courses for the BAME communities, so that they could coach back in the Development Centres; an ECB L1 course in Moorlands Prison (Doncaster) and the only tutor to do an ECB L2 course for the Deaf which took a year to develop and deliver. He also coached all disabilities in every area including autistic children, deaf, partially sighted/ totals and those who were physically disabled. As we conduct this interview, England are emerging