Only ever saw one match at Fartown ... although I moved to within a mile of the ground after it closed. Yorks played Kent in awful conditions ... the area surrounding the ground was made of lose shale ... it was a windy & we ended up watching a game in a sandstorm ... at one point Boys lost a contact lense & it took ages to find it. The game ended in a rather spectacular downpour. The state of the stadium rather than the outfield made it inevitable that Yorkshire would stop visiting.
Nice piece. I never watched county cricket in Huddersfield, so I found this to be a fascinating read. We have treated so many of our first class grounds in Yorkshire with utter contempt. This is just another example.
I've only been to 40 over matches at Fartown. There was a period - 70's;early80's I think - when Yorkshire came there once a year.
Crowds were usually good given decent weather - 10,000+ on more than one occasion. Facilities were awful and viewing just as bad, however it was a fine atmosphere. I also have a recollection of the cinder peripheral track and dirt in your eye!
Cricket memories? I have two in particular - a splendid Boycott hundred against Northants; they were playing a young lad called Wayne Larkins, who we all thought looked very promising. (He went on to do quite well I seem to remember!). This match we won; the other memory involves a game we lost against Worcestershire. In those days they were a very good one day side - Glenn Turner; Basil D'Oliviera and an array of canny old sweats. They had bowled us out of the game and we needed 27 to win off the last over. I'd made my way to the exit,together with hundreds of others. As so often is the case, it's hard to tear yourself away even when the cause is hopeless. D'Oliviera was put on to bowl the last over to Chris Old. The first ball went for 6 so did the next.(For those who weren't around then; Chris Old was one of the most powerful strikers of a cricket ball in the game.) When the next ball also went for 6 the crowd erupted in a gale of passion. As D'Oliviera came in for ball four the crowd's roar was reminiscent of Edgbaston 2005. True to form - it was an enormous anti-climax. D'Oliviera pitched the ball well up and Chris had to dig it out. The same for the last two balls. Yorkshire lost - no surprises there, but yet another golden memory for the bank.
I miss Fartown;I even miss Shaw Lane!! Perhaps, as someone wrote on another thread, additional 20/20 games might occasionally be played at an out ground. Sunday League in the 70's was great fun - all the more so because of the places we were able to watch our heroes.
>>>We have treated so many of our first class grounds in Yorkshire with utter contempt. This is just another example.
What else could we really do? Hard to justify spending millions on making Headingley a world class ground and then spend most of the season playing at Huddersfield, Middlesbrough, Hull, Harrogate, Sheffield, Barnsley etc etc. Scarborough still justifies a couple of games because everyone likes a day at the seaside ans attendance figures more than hold their own.
The only solution is something I've suggested before. Two first class county sides, one called South West Yorkshire based at Leeds and perhaps taking a few games to Sheffield and another team called North East Yorkshire based at Scarborough with a few games taken to Harrogate and Middlesbrough.
Never happen of course, but great if it did.
We in the ''north east'' would nurture and use the talent that has long been disregarded, stop the flow to Durham, sign a quality overseas player and have it written in stone that at least eight who were born in our half of the county would always take the field.
Champions within five years!
My father took me to see Len Hutton bat at Fartown in a charity match, for the same reasons, I suspect, as he took me to see Stanley Matthews play for Stoke at the old Leeds Road ground. In both cases, I was probably a bit too young to appreciate all that I was seeing, but I like to think some of it has stayed with me.
I hate to be picky but I recall that match aswell and Dolly bowled the penultimate over in which Chris Old hit his 3 sixes. We then needed about 10 off the last - not sure who bowled it - but the game was won by Glen Turner who sprinted in off the boundary and dived forward to catch another Chris Old shot that looked certain to go for four.
Thanks DW. Memory plays tricks with us doesn't it? I've always tended to prefer the romantic version of events - so much more comforting than the truth!
