The Twelfth Man 2019

Features Where does your love of cricket come from? How did it start? I grew up in Goole in a sporting family. As a young child we used to go to a sports club to play tennis and cricket was played there too. I would go over to watch and liked it more than the tennis. I used to watch the scorers and eventually they started to show me how to do it, they explained all the terminology and what was going on. It was fascinating and I held that fascination all through my working life as a PE teacher. I’ve always scored matches on my own scoresheets, even ones I’ve watched on television. But it was only when I retired that I was able to devote the time I really wanted to cricket. As soon as I finished work in 1983 I immediately joined up as a Yorkshire member and I fell into a group of five ladies from Sheffield. We used to go all over Yorkshire as they played all round the county then. The ladies were very knowledgeable about the play and would often comment on the field placings and whatever was happening - we certainly weren’t in the tea-room making the teas. And all the time I was scoring. For a long time I also had a membership at Lancashire, believe it or not. For me it was all about the cricket, rather than who I supported. Living in Penistone it was just as easy, if not easier, to get to Old Trafford. What is your current involvement or interest? I’m afraid my cricket watching dropped off a lot in the time my husband was ill and nowadays I don’t find it easy to get to Leeds. But I still go to Shaw Lane in Barnsley a lot - and I still do my own scoring. I tend to sit on my own, not because I’m unsociable but I do like to concentrate. People will come up to ask me the score and I don’t mind telling them. The players often ask me questions too; like wanting to know how many balls are left in an over or how many so- and-so has bowled. What is your earliest memo- rable moment in cricket? Oh, there have been so many. An early memory was going on holiday to Scarborough when I was 14 and being taken to the festival match. Yorkshire were playing Kent and I especially remember the wicketkeeper, Les Ames. I remember the thrill of going to Lord’s for the first time. We went on a coach for the Benson and Hedges Final in 1987 and Yorkshire were playing Northants. As soon as we got off the bus we were surrounded by touts offering us £50 for our tickets, but of course we didn’t want to know about that. I’d made up a straw hat and I’d been into Barnsley to buy three strands of silk in the right colours to make a hat-band to go with my Yorkshire scarf. We went through the Grace Gates and I thought it was marvellous just to be there. I remember Arnie Sidebottom and Jim Love - he’d already got 75 and only had to block the last ball and we’d won*. (* - Yorkshire reached 244 for 6 in their 55 overs in reply to Northants 244 for 7, winning by having lost fewer wickets. H D Bird was the umpire along with K E Palmer.) What has been your own involvement in the game? As well as belonging to Yorkshire and Lancashire and watching Barnsley, I’ve been in the Wombwell Cricket Lovers’ Society for about 40 years. I was the vice-chair when Frank Taylor was the chairman; I used to chair a lot of the meetings as he, being a journalist, would rather take notes. Frank was a survivor of the Munich air crash. MY LOVE OF CRICKET… WITH MARGARET BRAYSHAW Former Vice-Chair of the Society, Margaret Brayshaw has been a member for over 40 years and is still a regular attender at meetings. We asked her where her love of cricket comes from…