Can i just congratulate the club for deciding to allow kids to play on the Headingley Outfield this year. I know it doesn't add up to a great deal perhaps, but I think it's an important step in improving the atmosphere at the ground and encouraging more famillies to attend.
I hope that comments here - and elsewhere - may have encouraged this rethink - and I'm pleased that the club is prepared to listen to it's suporters and take our views on board.
Well done YCCC.

Thanks for posting this Steve as I'd completely missed it. I'd also like to add my thanks those people at the club who'd made this decision.

I'm sure it will help to encourage kids to come back .... I can just here 'little Johnny' getting home to tell mum 'I've played on Headingley. Can we go again?'

Bairstow presumably?

Hes probably too young to have ever had the chance to play on the outfield in the past so hope he can catch up for lost time now

Credit for this sensible decision. A step in the right direction.

However why have spectators not been allowed onto the Headingley outfield since around 1976/77 ish? I'm aware of no explanation ever being given. The agruement about 'wear and tear' to the outfield is nonesense or perhaps the grass seed in Leeds is very different to that used in Scarbrough.

I partially agree Sid ... but lets celebrate the club making the right decision (however belated) rather than criticising them for past 'errors'

I think the George Davis incident probably took longer to get over than it should.

I didn't mean to be churlish with my comments above. I genuinely applaud this change of policy and the people who made it, I was however, interested in the justification for not allowing people on to the outfield during the interval.

I remember on my first visit to Headingley Aug 1976 this was premitted however it ceased very soon afterwards. It's taken 30 years to reverse a decision that no one appears to be able to explain the original reasons for. I think the George Davis idea may be a red herring - the Davis incident was summer '75 and we were definately still allowed onto the outfield in summer '76.

Perhaps I was too quick to offer congratulations!
I noticed yesterday that kids under 16 were allowed to play on the outfield as part of the organised games - but adults weren't allowed on the field at all.
I wasn't sure if this was a one off special event - or a general relaxation of a ridiculous rule for all home games? It seems bizarre that i'm allowed to stroll out to the middle at Chester Le Street and Scarborough - but not at Leeds..
I'm sure the club will trot out some health and safety excuse but I honestly can't see what possible harm it can do...
It was great to see the kids playing yesterday. Let's make it the norm rather than a special one off...

I agree it would be great to allow the kids onto the outfield at all games, always used to wonder why I couldn't play on it when I was a kid through the 80s and 90s like I could at the outgrounds. Only used to get on after international matches or big one dayers.

But then if some of the ignorant families with no interest in cricket come and sit right next to us like yesterday and practically force us into moving then they can stay away!! East Stand for the next one day game I think.

I don't think it would be a good move to allow the western terraces onto the outfield during the interval of a T20 - so then the question is then who do you allow and when?

Concerns abgout the new turf still settling may have have induced a note of caution yesterday.
The prctise at Lord's which has been in place for the last few seasons,is to allow spectators on the outfield,weather permitting during the lunch interval,and the break between innings in a one day game as happened yesterday.

I thought the organised games for the kids yesterday was great. My 8 year old was particularly pleased that he could go on the outfield but his old Dad was not allowed!

Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I remember an AGM in about 1994 where Robin Smith announced that the banning of spectators from the pitch was a stipulation of Leeds City Council and nothing to do with YCCC.

It stuck im my mind because at the same meeting he also said that Headingley wasn't going to get a test in 2005 or 2013; at the time I recall thinking that that meant we were going to miss two Ashes tests.

Are my memories true or is senility setting in?

Well if Leeds CC did stipulate this then perhaps the goalposts have moved now that we own the ground ourselves and this has allowed it?

I suppose if Leeds CC own Headingley and Elland Road then they could hardly advocate one rule for half time at the footie and another for the tea break at the cricket