STEVE DRAPER is a well-known cricket historian and has been a member of the Association of Cricket Statisticians for many years. His several research articles include: The Cricket Grounds of Yorkshire. published in 1995 and The Cricket Grounds of Durham (2006).Sheffield Collegiate Cricket Club, whose home is at Abbeydale Park, were formed in 1881 by the old boys of Collegiate School and initially played at Bramall Lane. The formation of the Sheffield United Cricket Clubs own team in 1892 forced them to move to the old Tinsley C.C. ground on Bawtry Lane. In 1911 the club joined the Sheffield Amateur Sports Club (S.A.S.C.) and moved to Handsworth.
The thirty-acre Abbeydale Park site in the suburb of Dore was opened in 1922 and continues to host other sports in addition to cricket. The first cricket match played here was between Sheffield Collegiate C.C. and Frickley Colliery C.C. in a Yorkshire Council fixture on 6th May of that year. The attendance was reported to be disappointing for such an occasion.
The large, attractive grounds were first mooted as a county venue in the late 1930s, but the outbreak of war delayed the plan. In 1946, and again in 1947, Derbyshire used the ground (usually referred to as Dore at the time) as a home venue. Contrary to popular belief the ground was, strictly speaking, in Yorkshire at this time the village of Dore became part of Sheffield in 1933 and an Act of Parliament of 1935 transferred all parts of Derbyshire within the Sheffield boundary to Yorkshire. For cricket purposes, however, the M.C.C. were still using the earlier boundaries.
The two Derbyshire games were not reckoned to be a great success and the ground returned to an exclusive diet of club and junior cricket, which would have continued, we can only assume, but for events at Bramall Lane. With the loss of that venue Abbeydale was put forward as a stop-gap and Yorkshire made their first appearance at the ground in May 1974 the visitors being Warwickshire in a Championship game. At this time the S.A.S.C. refused to allow Yorkshire use of the ground at weekends, which a proved a considerable drawback.
It had always been thought that once Sheffield United C.C. found a suitable site Yorkshire would use it as a major venue and so when United acquired a new ground on Bawtry Road an appeal was launched by Yorkshire C.C.C. (around 1980) to raise money to turn it into a First-class venue. However it proved impossible to raise sufficient funds and the plan was abandoned, leaving Yorkshire to turn to Abbeydale as a permanent base in South Yorkshire. The S.A.S.C. changed their policy regarding weekends and undertook improvements at the ground, including levelling and re-turfing the pitch which had often been criticised in the past.
By the mid 1980s Yorkshire were playing seven days of cricket at the ground annually (two three-day Championship games and a one-day Sunday league game) and with attendances that compared favourably with other venues its long term future seemed reasonably assured. However in 1994 this was cut to only four days (one championship game) and questions were raised as to the viability of the venue. The decision to discontinue visits to the ground in 1996 therefore came as no great surprise. Yorkshires last first-team game was against Derbyshire on the 9th -13th May of that year, bringing to an end 164 years of Yorkshire cricket in the city.
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Sheffield Abbeydale Park 2006
Photo by Steve Draper
There was a great deal of sadness amongst cricket-lovers that a city that had played such an influential role in the development of the game would no longer be staging First-class cricket. Amongst provincial towns or cities only Nottingham can claim to have played such a pivotal role in crickets history as Sheffield, and of course Sheffield is the birthplace of Yorkshire C.C.C.
Abbeydale Park is an attractive venue for cricket; the open tree-lined ground having an almost rural feel the contrast with Bramall Lane could hardly be greater. The only permanent structure on the ground, other than the scoreboard, is the large modern clubhouse and pavilion on the southern corner of the ground. For county games various large marquees were erected around the ground, which tended to give the ground an almost festival atmosphere.
The ground at Abbeydale Park continues today as a well-appointed and attractive club ground and is still used by Yorkshire Second XI. During the time that the ground hosted Yorkshire first-team games several banks scaffolding holding white plastic seats were erected at the Water Lane end of the ground. Most were subsequently dismantled but one was, a little optimistically perhaps, allowed to remain and it is now rusting and overgrown but provides the only physical evidence of Yorkshires visits.
Bibliography K.Farnsworth. Before and after Bramall Lane (1988)
Newspaper Sheffield Star
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