What an innings! It’s not out for Rochdale
One of Lancashire’s oldest sporting institutions celebrates its
IT’S 1824, a leap year. George 1V’s obese frame sits uncomfortably on the throne, his mental and physical health rapidly declining as the heavy drinking and indulgent lifestyle takes a serious toll on the head of state.
There are, after all, only so many breakfasts a man can stomach of pigeon and beef steak pie washed down with wine, Champagne, port and brandy!
By the summer of 1824 the sight of the monarch in public is a rare one.
The king will see the year out and indeed will defy the medical experts of the day by clinging on for another six years.
Lord Byron, famed English poet, is less fortunate – he passes away in April of 1824 after contracting fever while fighting in the Greek War of Independence.
It’s a year that sees the formation of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Australia adopted by the British Admiralty as the official name of the country once known as New Holland.
Closer to home, the Industrial Revolution has changed the face of Rochdale forever. The first steam-powered mill was built in 1791 at Hanging Lane and a great many others will follow over the course of the next century.
With the mills comes a growing population, a hard-working one at that.
And it’s against this backdrop of a booming township in need of some form of escape from life behind the thread winder or the carding machine that Rochdale Cricket Club is formed on a permanent basis.
The first meeting of the directors and management takes place in the Woolpack Inn, Rochdale on the 15th June 1824. Presided over by Mr Robert Holt, the standout discussion point is the rental of ’Meer Field’ for the remainder of the season at the princely sum of £2.
The club adopted the rules, laws and regulations established by Marylebone Cricket Club, a printed copy of which was kept by the secretary.
Membership was granted by ballot and members met at a different hostelry each week.
It was a somewhat nomadic existence from then on as the club moved in 1828 to the College Houses, situated between Toad Lane and where the Albert Hotel now stands on Spotland Road.
Hard to visualise, but at that time it was quite a sleepy road with nothing but hedgerows and green fields as far as the eye could see.
Later grounds were Top O’th’hill, near where Baron Street is now, and then back to Merefield as it had become known.
A house building project in the New Barn Lane area forced yet another move and in 1868 they settled in at the Vavasour Street Estate, off Milnrow Road.
The most notable match of this period was an Eleven of Champions of the North facing Eleven Champions of the South on 8th, 9th and 10th of September 1860.
The Rochdale Observer, founded four years earlier in 1856, covered the match and the weather sounds all too familiar.
The report reads: “We all knew (from the wet experience of the last eleven months) that it would rain if it could and as dark masses came rolling over the town, mingling with the still darker masses of native smoke, the match scheduled to start at 11am began at 3pm.”
The report continues: “We understand the players have spoken in such flattering terms of a ground that the Rochdale Club may fairly pride themselves in having one of the best grounds in the North of England.
“On the Saturday there was a large attendance estimated at 7000, £113 was taken on the gate and when all expenses had been paid there was a handsome surplus for charity.”
SCORES
North 208 and 28/2 (Anderson 69*, Willsher 6-71).
South 114 (Hayward 4-35) and 161 (Caffyn 55, Tarrant 4-21).
Nevertheless, at the end of that season the ground was required for building, so the club had to look for another ground.
The Vavasour Estate off
Milnrow Road was chosen by a small majority of the committee as the future headquarters of Rochdale Cricket Club.
The 1868 season opened at the new Milnrow Road ground with an extraordinary event; Rochdale versus the Aborigines.
It took place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday 2nd, 3rd and 4th of July and created a great deal of interest.
The visitors appeared in an eye-catching uniform with each player wearing a red shirt, white trousers and a distinctive coloured sash.
The match won’t be best remembered for the batting display with time alone saving the Australian outfit from defeat
However, thousands of spectators were drawn to the ground to witness the sports which were to follow.
Traditional athletics plus throwing the cricket ball aroused some interest but it was the native sports which had the crowd on their feet. In particular the throwing of the boomerang or cullum, cullum.
The highlight saw a thrower launch the weapon a considerable distance in such a way that having completed a circuit it came back to him, to the wonderment of the onlookers.
A successful decade followed and in 1876 Rochdale was again given the opportunity to host a North versus South contest.
Spectators turned out in their thousands for a contest
featuring the Graces and their cousin Gilbert who scored freely in each innings for the South.
Sadly, 1877 was the last season at the ground and they were left to seek pastures new.
All was not lost. The Ladies Bazaar Committee raised an astonishing £1,600 and that money and £200 besides was spent on changing Butcher Meadow close to the town centre from an uneven, low-lying piece of wasteland into a spacious and well laid cricket ground later to be known as Dane Street.
It was a wonderful investment which was to become the club’s home for the next 176 years.
The inaugural game on the new ground was a three-day affair against a United South of England Xl.
Rochdale scored 132 and 110. The visitors were bowled out for 93 with Tye, a professional taking eight for 15, but managed 138 for four in a drawn game.
For the United South, a certain W.G. Grace scored 21 and 57 and finished with an impressive bowling return of 10 for 12 and four for nine.
The next major step in the club’s history came in in 1893 when Rochdale joined the Central Lancashire League.
They enjoyed immediate success, becoming champions in their inaugural season and the two that followed.
They enjoyed further success in seasons 1900, 1905 and 1906 before a
barren period.
The First World War hit the club so badly that in 1918 there was no cricket at Dane Street. But a few men with visions of happier days worked strenuously and the year ended with the club practically out of debt.
In 1919, Rochdale-born financier and then president of the club Jimmy White set out to sign the ‘best professional’ in the land.
Rochdale’s search led them to Cecil Parkin.
When it was discovered Parkin was asking for £10.00, club representatives travelled to London to see Mr White. When told the fee was £10 a week White responded: “They pay street sweepers that down here.”
And so Parkin came to Rochdale.
He didn’t disappoint. In a three-season stay he took 406 wickets. There were, however, no trophies to show for his efforts.
A highly successful period then evolved with the signing of Pat Morfee, a fast right-hand bowler.
In a four-season stay at Dane Street the records speak for themselves in that Rochdale won the League and the Wood Cup. In all he took 390 wickets and scored 1,700 runs.
Next in line was ex-kent and Lancashire man Bill Hickmott. And with his medium-pace left-hand deliveries in 1927 he took 140 wickets in League and Wood Cup games at a time when only 22 matches were played per season.
The great Sidney Barnes came for two seasons and, although 56 years of age, he took 203 wickets during his stay.
Next up was West Indian Ellis Achong, who joined the club in 1934. In each of his first two seasons as professional at Dane Street, Achong took more than 100 wickets and his third term bagged 87. He was a great crowd favourite as, apart from many fine performances, he was a charming personality off it.
Rochdale hit the headlines again in 1938 when they secured the services of Learie Constantine, who signed for just one season. He did not enjoy the best of seasons by his own standards but brought joy to the home crowd when, against Middleton, he posted 50 in 15 minutes and brought up his century in 33 minutes with a huge six.
There were no professionals in 1940-43 after the outbreak of World War Two, while 1944-45 saw the return of Stanley Crump, who had spent the 1937 season at the club.
The Dane Street outfit pulled off another coup with the signing of Cecil (Cec) Pepper, who had proved to an outstanding success in the Australian Services team which had played a series of Test Matches in England during the summer of 1945. Pepper was signed on a three-year contract.
The highlight of his inaugural season was a hard-hitting 143 in two and a quarter hours. Two of his sixes soared over the pavilion at Stockport’s Cale Street ground. In all he hit six sixes, a five and 17 fours. This was followed by a return of 9 for 43 as the home team were bowled out for 155.
Pepper waited another season before completing the double, only the second player to have done so. He repeated the feat in 1948 and the Championship was won with a 13-point margin over Milnrow, the runners-up.
Pepper’s three-year stay at Dane Street netted him 3,127 runs and 297 wickets.
The crowd at Dane Street “had seen nothing yet.”
What followed was five seasons of ex-gloucestershire and England Test batsman Charlie Barnett. His superb attacking play had ranked with the world’s best and he didn’t disappoint.
He scored runs for Rochdale at an amazing speed.
During his tenure, in which the League was won four times and the Wood Cup once, Barnett scored 4,687 runs and captured 437 wickets.
Mention must be made of the support he received from an excellent amateur back-up with batsmen Jack Hunter, George Holland, all-rounder Frank (Bomber) Schofield and spin bowler Ken B Smith.
New Zealander Eric Fisher was the paid man for the 1954 season and featured in a remarkable Cup game at Ashton.
Rochdale, batting first, were all out for 79 on the first evening with the final three wickets all falling on the same score.
At the conclusion of play, Ashton’s reply stood at 0 runs for five wickets, eight wickets having fallen without a run being added. The following night, Ashton’s reply ended with their score on 10.
Another cricketer of international renown, Dattu Phadkar, the Indian Test Cricketer joined the club in 1955. And, he didn’t let them down with the Wood Cup won in each of the four seasons of his stay while the League Championship nestled into the trophy cabinet in 1955 and 1956.
There was little trophy success in the 1960s and 1970s as Rochdale focused on developing the younger players in the squad.
Professionals of note were West Indians Neil Phillips and Robert Haynes, plus local favourites Goolam Abed and Wilson Hartley, who both had a long association with the club.
Success finally reemerged in the shape of South African Dave Callaghan.
The 1989 season saw him finding his feet, scoring 1,554 runs and taking 74 wickets, before the wait was over.
THIS piece is dedicated to the memory of the late Alistair Bolingbroke, who collected the resources to make this article possible.
Alistair took on matchreporting duties for the Ob in 2017 following the passing of David Appleton, a former Observer reporter and fellow Rochdale Cricket Club devotee.
Also a regular at Rochdale AFC games, Alistair was a highly-skilled writer whose knowledge of cricket shone through in his considered, fair reporting.
He is sadly missed.