Community stalwarts are chosen to turn up match balls at Shrovetide
GAME STILL SCHEDULED FOR MARCH 1
TWO stalwarts of the Ashbourne community, who have committed their time to causes they are passionate about, have been chosen to turn up Shrovetide balls in 2022.
Bay Spencer, who was born into a local bakery business and been a tireless volunteer with the Royal British Legion, has the honour on Shrove – Tuesday, March 1.
Long-time Clifton Cricket Club man Roger Jones chosen to turn up the Ash Wednesday ball.
Mr Spencer, 91, who was born on Armistice Day, 1930, had to work hard to help the family bakery business succeed. In retirement, he has been able to indulge himself in one of his passions – restoring and showing off his 1945 Willys Jeep.
He dusts it off every November, parks it in Victoria Square, and spends a weekend selling poppies for the Royal British Legion;.
Bay, his son Michael and grandson Carl are custodians of the Jeep and, supported by his wife Marguerite they have raised more than £1,000 for the Poppy Appeal each year. Over 20 years, that amounts to £20,000.
Great-grandfather Bay spent his National Service driving armoured vehicles and Willys Jeeps in the Middle East
They take the vehicles to a variety of shows and events throughout the year, as part of a club dedicated to conserving old service vehicles. Money raised in each Poppy Appeal goes to the Royal British Legion, which acts as a network to support members of the Armed Forces, along with veterans and their families.
Despite all the uncertainties of the pandemic, the Ashbourne branch of the Royal British Legion reported earlier this month that Ashbourne’s poppy sellers had raised a record sum – more than £23,000 – which Mr Spencer and his Jeep made a large contribution towards.
And his years of support for the appeal have now led to him being chosen to receive one of the greatest honours an Ashburnian can be given, turning up a Shrovetide ball and officially heralding the start of Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide 2022.
He said: “It feels an honour to throw the ball up in front of people. I shall be up there with my other family members who have turned up a ball over the years, and that makes me feel proud.”
Mr Spencer’s family might be well known as a family of bakers, but Shrovetide also runs through the veins of every single one of them.
Although Mr Spencer, an Up’ard, was not always able to take part in full games himself, as he had to keep the bakery ticking over and keep hungry Shrovetiders supplied with their breakfasts, the roll of honour is peppered with successful Shrovetiding Spencers.
Among these, his father William scored in Sturston in 1911, his son Mark goaled a Millennium ball at Sturston in 2000, and his nephew Simon Spencer – a former Ashbourne mayor and the deputy leader of Derbyshire County Council – turned up the Shrove Tuesday ball in 2009.
Mr Spencer, whose real name is Hugh, is no stranger to the Shrovetide luncheon, and the huge hug that gathers around the plinth waiting for the game to start but, he confesses, he feels a little apprehensive about his big speech in front of hundreds of people in Ashbourne Leisure Centre.
He said: “I don’t know about speech-making. I enjoy a natter, and I can talk to people, but saying something in front of a lot of people will make me quite nervous.”
And although his allegiance will always lie with the Up’ards, he insists he will remain impartial for the 2022 game his ball will be played in - particularly considering his grandchildren and their dad Michael are staunch Down’ards.
He said: “I’m that passionate about the town itself, and the game is part of the town, so you’ve got to support the Up’ards and the Down’ards. You’ve got to support the game itself, and I want to see it played well. I never want to see it stopped or interfered with.”
Sportsman and Clifton Cricket Club legend Roger Jones is the man chosen to turn up the Ash Wednesday ball next year.
Born and raised above his parents’ greengrocery shop in Dig Street, Mr Jones has been joining the Up’ards in the river and the fields since he was in his early teens – but it was his passion for sports on Ashbourne’s official pitches that wove a stronger thread through his life.
His love of cricket and rugby developed at Ashbourne’s secondary modern school, and he joined Clifton Cricket Club as a 13-yearold, urged to do so by his teacher Iain Christenson who was a talented Clifton player.
So the fresh-faced teenager borrowed a bicycle and started to become a familiar face at Chapel Lane, grasping the occasional opportunity to join the team on the pitch, at the same time as playing occasionally for Ashbourne Cricket Club, and also turning out for Ashbourne Rugby Club at Osmaston Polo Ground.
Mr Jones worked his way up the ranks at Clifton and moved from the second team to the first team, quickly establishing himself as one of the club’s most successful players. But it was his efforts off the pitch that will perhaps be the 68-year-old’s biggest legacy, as he was to eventually become the club’s chairman, vice chairman and now president.
All the while raising huge sums of money for the club, and giving up huge amounts of his spare time volunteering.
He explained: “I could see the tremendous effort that went into running a cricket club, and even now some people don’t really appreciate what it takes to run a club like Clifton.
“And I don’t know how old I was when I got on the committee, maybe my late 20s, but think I wanted to give something back, to help the club I’d committed to.
I shall be up there with my other family members who have turned up a ball over the years, and that makes me feel proud. Bay Spencer
“And by this time of course I was playing for Ashbourne Rugby Club, where I met my late wife Carol, and I was playing rugby during the winter and cricket during the summer. It was pretty full on. We went from one season to the other.”
Mr Jones was also a member of the rugby club committee, and after he and his wife, a keen sportswoman herself, were married, she also gave up her time for both clubs, supporting them as a volunteer.
A captaincy then beckoned for Mr Jones at Clifton but, once again, it was the time he gave up away from the wicket that made the biggest difference to the club.
He threw himself into fund-raising, and even volunteered for many years as its groundsmen, attending courses on maintaining the pitches and ensuring it was as good as it could be for his fellow players.
Balancing his job as a site engineer with his work at Chapel Lane was never a problem to his wife, however, as Clifton Cricket Club was a shared passion. “God knows how Carol put up with it,” he joked. “But she did. She loved the club like I did.”
Mr Jones has also taken on coaching roles at Clifton, and he still runs practice sessions to encourage new players into the sport. And as he begun to spend less time on the pitch, steering the club through the various challenges it has faced over the years, he soon found himself steering it through one of its biggest projects.
The ground’s clubhouse and changing rooms had been in dire need of replacement, and with an economic recession leading to cuts in all possible funding, planning a replacement building became a 10-year task.
But in 2018 Mr Jones as the club’s chairman became the frontman of the celebrations, as a new building costing £250,000 was finally opened. A new jewel in the club’s crown.
The role of chairman has since been handed over to Stuart Blake, but Mr Jones has been made the club’s president. Attendances on the pitch are now few and far between, he admits, but he says he remains ready and willing to step up to the crease if the team is ever short of players.
The work Mr Jones has put into Clifton Cricket Club propelled him to national fame in 2009, when he was shortlisted as an unsung hero in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. Athlete Rebecca Adlington presented Mr Jones with his award, and he was able to rub shoulders with some of the greatest names in sport, including the overall winner of the year, footballer Ryan Giggs.
But, he says, the honour of being an award-winning sports personality is nothing in comparison to the honour of turning up a Shrovetide ball.
He said: “This is fantastic, it’s such a great honour for me, for my family for the cricket club, the rugby club, and it’s going to be a fantastic day.
“You do get very humbled about being offered something like that, because as I found out with my little dalliance with Sports Personality of the year, there’s always someone who has done more than you.
“Even just from the cricket club, John Allsop’s thrown it up, past presidents have thrown it up, Mick Pepper’s thrown it up, they’ve all made contributions in their own way.
“But this is so much bigger than the unsung hero award for me. This is the place I was born, the place where I’ve lived my whole life, and where the roots of my family are. This is the biggest honour I’ve ever had. It’s just fantastic.”
I’m that passionate about the town itself, and the game is part of the town.
Roger Jones