Umpires under fire for allowing play in the rain

Amanda Barrie, actress Koenig, actor, Sam Neill, actor, football coach and former player Mary Crosby, actress, Morten Harket, singer,

Kimberly Williams, actress, Andrew Lincoln, actor, Tinchy Stryder, rapper, IN 70 years of playing and watching Huddersfield league cricket I have never been so astonished as when the second half of the Sykes Cup final was played in such dire conditions.

Most of the play after the tea interval took place in quite heavy rain but the umpires ignored it and, as sole arbiters of when play should be suspended, carried on regardless.

Maybe Broad Oak would not have won the game, but that is not the point.

The umpires, in my opinion, were stubbornly intransigent of the risks to bowlers, batsmen and players despite the league impressing on them seriously to consider health and safety.

I believe the actions of the umpires ruined the showpiece game as a spectacle and brought the league into disrepute.

In my view the umpires concerned should be disciplined, possibly banned.

But I fear they may escape with a smack on the wrists. on Wednesday it was guaranteed by the Umpires Association that playing in the rain would not happen again. A RECENT visit to Huddersfield made me aware of the health and accident free nature of Huddersfield’s residents.

When I drove Huddersfield ambulances in the 1960s we had Huddersfield Royal Infirmary in Portland Street, St Luke’s at Crosland Moor, Mill Hill, Dean House, Moor View, Bradley Wood, Storthes Hall, Holme Valley and The Princess Royal for a total population of around 130,000.

I remember transferring patients from Portland Street to the new facility at Lindley in, I think, 1967.

What a shock to learn that this is now to close and patients will have to travel to Halifax which must add 20 minutes to ambulance times.

We were proud of getting patients to HRI in seven minutes but, of course, people must have being far less healthy in those days!

I live in Orkney where we have a small hospital serving a population of 22,000 and a new hospital is being constructed to save us having to fly to Inverness, Aberdeen and, in my case, Edinburgh (at a cost of almost £400 per trip) all paid for by the Scottish health service!

Surely the 160,000 Huddersfield residents deserve at least one hospital.

I remember Huddersfield as a once proud town that would never have allowed this to happen.

Do you still have politicians and councillors as well as excellent health? If so, what are they doing?