Be sure to check out Steve Draper's lastest addition to his excellent grounds guide series: Link

Things could have been very different. Not necessarilly better, but certainly different.
Is it entirely fanciful to suggest that it was the proposed move to Durkar that persuaded Caddick to enter negotiations that led to the club eventually buying Headingley.
Perhaps more good came out of Durkar than we realised.
And I've still got the video...

A missed opportunity, in my opinion.

I think it's alarming to read that this was in 1996/7 as I can clearly remember it being discussed on local sports programmes.

Where are the years going to?

Were any renders of the proposed stadium ever produced? Did things advance so far that things like capacity were discussed?

The selfish 'we have to stay in Leeds' mob meant that the rest of us have to fight our way round or through the city to get to Headingley ... where's there no parking & the locacl populous don't want us ... & we might own parts of the ground ... but the Rugby still have 'rights' over so much that we're not actually 'in control' of the cricket ground.

p.s. I also still have the video

there was certainly a sketch stage design, based largely on Newlands I think. It would have been a great stadium and one in the right place for all or most of yorkshire. (and i live in headingley) But Wakefield council's funding package always looked ambitious and they couldn't deliver. It was supposedly completely free to YCCC. In fact the then leader of the Council (a Mr Croxall?) disappeared under a cloud of some kind. We had a verbal agreement to leave Headingley with the previous owners, but the new owner (Mr Caddick) had us signed to a 99 year lease. We omitted to get the leaving deal in writing. Given the lease- the idea of leaving without Mr Caddick's consent was pure fantasy and we subsequently wasted a lot of time and money on "we are leaving postures."

What was preserved was our history the many great days of victory,the walks around Headingley at lunch breaks, the fish and chip shop where we took our kids as a treat during the day, the odd pint or so pre match in the Skyrack, the number 45 bus that never seemed to come on time if ever taking us back to Wortley,the instant doubling of the crowd at the tea breaks when the gates were opened for the workers on their way home,the western terrace noise when we were on the verge of victory,the YEP sellers bleating out latest scores from other grounds.
Im sure you all have many more .
Thank god we didn't move.

Interesting that 'history' is always mentioned ... yet the club ditched grounds in other parts off the county without any trouble ... remember its Yorkshire County Cricket Club NOT Leeds Cricket Club. As a result we've had to put up with 10 years of building works ... and people still get kicked out the parking behind the West Stanfd if the Rugby stand need it

What brought this up again?
Is it just our tireless quest to rake over old arguments?

Durkar was mentioned quite a bit last season when we had yet more restrictions due to the building of the Pavilion that we wont be using.

Strange how some topics always bring out old arguments. Wakefield would have been a big mistake and when some people slate current management then look at the jokers we had at the time running the club who got carried away with an expensive pipedream without checking out the facts properly and soon enough.

Grahame comments about headingley struck a chord with me but more as a reminder of Scarborough. My Scarborough experiences is about the whole occasion and trip but headingley is more about on pitch derring do. What would it be like to back on the 50th anniversary of Boycs hundredth ton to see a car park or student flat or local cost cutter. Just look at some of the photos mr DRaper has shown to see what I mean.

Why is headingley a building site for last ten years? Because it was left in the dark ages for too long and has plenty of catching up to do as a result of crap management in the past and stupid agreements with CAddick from the rugby side. Would you prefer us to do nothing and lose test match status and continue to have crap facilities for us to moan about?

As I said why treat one ground differently from others ... Bramhall Lane has great memories but we lost it so had to go to Abbeydale, Harrogate was first used in by Yorkshire in 1895, Bradford Park Avenue in 1881 ... but we stopped playing there .. yes Middlsebrough was only played on by Yorks from 1956 ... but it helped to keep the flame alight in the north of the county ... I wont even mention Fartown or the Circle (both of which I've seen one day games at)

Yorksihre have played at Headingley since 1891 yet some would prefer to drop Scarborough (1874) and play all games there.

Yorkshire is a large county and many travel from outside West Yorkshire to matches ... yet we're in danger of becoming the Leeds Cricket Club. One mate doesn't turn up on a Friday because he goes out in the vening & doesn't want to risk getting caught up in traffic on his way home. 20-20 games aren't a viable option when you have to fight traffic to get there for a 5pm start

I used to go to Abbeydale on the bus in my younger days ... the Yorkhire match was an event in the city .... now people have to travel to Leeds or Scarborough to see a team so we wont get South Yorkshire lads starting to atch games .. we lose players (& I'll bet supporters) in the North to Durham .. because its easier to get there. Durkar might have been slightly further from some ... but it would have been easier to get to.

Durkar would have been easier to get to ... assuming you have a car. I guess that would've been fitting with the 1990s.

Headingley at least has a train station and several bus services. I'm also not sure what else would've been around Durkar - Headingley has a few pubs and places to buy food; and it's nice to leave the ground at lunchtimes.

What a great series this has been. It's certainly boosted my interest in Yorkshire cricket.

Thanks Mr. Draper, and to all those who have commented.

A missed opportunity? Yes I think so!

Certainly, at the time I would have voted for it and nothing in the subsequent developments at Headingley have caused me to change the view I held at the time.

Headingley was a worn-out, under-developed apology for a first class cricket ground. It had never really been associated with the greatest moments of YCCC history, which took place far more often at Bramall Lane, Bradford or Scarborough, (though some outstanding Test Cricket had been played there) and it was (and still is) in a depressingly deteriorating, but over-populated part of Leeds, which made expansion and development almost impossible and impossibly expensive. Accessibility was (and still is) problematical because the motorway network is completely divorced from North West Leeds and parking is non-existent.

Durkar offered a green field site, adjacent to the M1 and centrally placed within Yorkshire's transport network. There was even the real potential for a rail link.

As for genetic links with cricket, David Denton came from just down the road.

Whether there was ever a realistic opportunity for the relocation I do not know, but every time I pass the proposed site on my southern tours, I ponder what a difference it would have made - and consider too, the capacity it would have enjoyed to heal the "rift with Sheffied" in particular, and S.Yorks in general.

I think it true to say that looking back from 2009, one has to admit that YCCC has become far too Headingley-centric, and something tells me that it will become even more so.

I used to attend macthes at Bramall Lane and Abbeydale Park on a regular basis. Now I prefer to go to Chesterfield and Derby rather than trudge to an inhospitable Headingley. I can reach the former very quickly and comfortably. By comparison getting to Headingley is a chore.

Sheffield used to be home a healthy proportion of YCCC members. Today I would guess it is a very small - and declining - minority.

unfortunately the same applies to cleveland and the north yorkshire. i will always be loyal to yorkshire but our band of 8 is down to 2 with 4 defecting to durham and 2 stopping altogether.

I certainly think so, unless you actually live in north Leeds. If my memory serves me right a site near where the M1 joins the A1 was also touted as a possible site for the new ground. Again Mr Caddick was only too willing to sell the cricket ground to Yorkshire once the ground lost it's automatic test status, while ever Yorks had the automatic right to a test every summer Mr Caddick wanted Yorkshire to honour the terms of the 99 year lease.
Headingley for many years was a dump! no parking! toilet facilities a disgrace. At least since Yorkshire bought the ground the ground itself has improved, but for those of us that have to travel any distance getting to and from Headingley the last couple of mile is a nightmare.
Ok Durker might not have been ideal but it surely would have been easier to get to and away from.

it could be worse, at least i do,nt have to live there.

I can't believe that people are still wittering on about Durkar as a missed opportunity. It never was an opportunity because there was never any hope of getting funding. Anyway, can you imagine the jokers who ran YCCC at the time trying to oversee such a project?

A ground in the middle of the motorway network is never going to attract passing trade - look at the number of people who turn up at Headingley after work. It is also utter nonsense to say that the last couple of miles into Headingley is a nightmare. I used to live about 5 miles away and could get there in 5 minutes, every time. Now I live 200+ miles away I can still get off the motorway and to the ground without any problems at all. In thirty five years I've never had a problem parking.

As posters have already commented, one of the pleasures of Headingley is the option of leaving the ground at the intervals for a walk round, doing a few chores, and a cheaper pint elsewhere.

The Rose Bowl is what Durkar might have been, except that we wouldn't have had a philanthropist coughing up all the money, and it's not that impressive anyway. And for all the money thrown at it, the transport at the Rose Bowl is terrible.

The Riverside is what Durkar might have been - an attractive ground with a great atmosphere that's easy to get to...

I think it's time to move on.
I think however that we should thank the Durkar proposal - the purchase of the ground - due largely to the support of leeds Council - and all subsequent improvements have all come about because people suddenly started realising how bad the previous arrangements were...

I'd like to add my support to the post made by Dpressed about the impact of our gradual drift towards becoming Leeds CC. The loss of support in Sheffield and the Middlesbrough area is really sad. We must remain YORKSHIRE county cricket club.

I'd like to challenge Maldontyke about the post tea increase in attendance - don't think thats happened much in the last generation. A final day run chase in the 3 day county championship game might have dragged a few last afternoon spectators in especially on a Friday tea time, but 4 day cricket and the ever changing starting day has pretty much put an end to that.

Most of the cricket people I know have to work for a living, but they will come along, irrespective of the state of the match, when they can. I suspect for some it doesn't even matter whether there's a game on or not; it's nice to sit with friends, having a drink after work, watching the grass grow. Perhaps Headingley suffers from the Scarborough phenomenon of some people leaving at a set time, whether the game has finished or not.

The problem of taking first team cricket around the county is that the facilities at the outgrounds are not up to scratch for professional sport in the 21st century, and before anyone says, that's also true of Headingley, but at least that issue is being resolved. There's not enough money around in cricket to have 9 decent first-class venues. I don't really care whether Yorkshire are based at Headingley, Scarborough, Sheffield or wherever, it will still take me 3 hours plus to get there, but when I arrive I expect to have facilities befitting the time and money I invest in the club.

This is straying from the major point - Durkar was never an option, and I am amazed that intelligent people revere what never existed and never could have existed, viewing it like some sort of Elysian Cricket Field.