Memories of Sprotbrough Cricket Club's special century

One of the oldest sporting clubs in the Doncaster area, the club have been flying the flag for the sport in the popular village since 1886.

Sprotbrough’s ground off Melton Road, where they are believed to have played since their formation in Victorian times, sits at the heart of the village.

As well as providing a good standard of cricket for locals, they also host a popular Bonfire Night fire and display which attracts thousands, a Summer Bash and a Christmas Fayre all of which helps pay for ground improvements, equipment and other running costs.

Whitworth Cup winners back in 2021, the club run three senior sides in the Yorkshire Southern Premier League as well as still competing in the Doncaster Evening Infirmary League. The first XI, which plays in the Championship, will be hoping to climb into the top half of the table in the run-in.

I remember visiting the Sprotbrough home of the then club secretary Malcolm Johnson - who had won the Doncaster Cricket League Division Two stumping award two years earlier - back in 1986 to discuss the forthcoming centenary celebrations and to look back on the highlights of the past 100 years. I also did some digging myself.

Although he didn’t feature in that many games, Douglas Bader, the legendary World War 2 pilot, lived in the village and played for the club when home from boarding school in the early-mid 1920s.

In what must have been an interesting match a decade or so later, the club still managed to beat Old Edlington in a Doncaster League match in the 1930s despite being bowled out for just 12 – five more than their opponents managed.

The Dent family, four of whom once played in the same team back in the mists of time, were associated with the club for many years.

One of the most well-known men connected with the club over the years has to be Joe Lumb. The former police inspector became the first licensee of the Ivanhoe Hotel, built on land adjacent to the cricket pitch and which has proved to be a handy place for players to celebrate victories or drown their sorrows.

He took over as club chairman in 1941 and became the first Doncaster representative to be appointed to the Yorkshire CCC committee in 1950.

Lumb also became the first president of the Doncaster & District Cricket Association in 1961 - formed in part to encourage more youngsters to participate in the sport - and the trophy named after him is still regarded as one of the most prestigious junior trophies in the county.

Lumb’s connections with Yorkshire, and his position at the Ivanhoe, led to some of the biggest names in the sport at the time gracing their ground including legendary Yorkshire and England batsman Sir Len Hutton and Yorkshire and England bowler Johnny Wardle in benefit games.

Lumb’s grandson, Richard, who regularly opened the batting for Yorkshire alongside Geoffrey Boycott, also played at the ground during his benefit season in 1983. Richard’s brother John also played for the Tykes 2nd XI for several years.

Although the club won a number of both team and individual awards in the Doncaster League over the years, as well as in the Doncaster Evening Infirmary League, generally speaking they weren’t regarded as being one of the ‘big guns’.

But that wasn’t the case in the late 70s and early 80s when they finished in the top four in the Premier Section in five successive seasons and victory in their last match of the 1983 season against Cementation would have seen them crowned champions.

Players remembered by the club during their centenary celebrations included the likes of Edgar Aspinall whose club record of 649 runs in a season set in 1947 was still standing in 1986.

Alan Dixon and Bill Young, the Yates’ brothers, Malcolm Batty, who scored a century in three seasons between 1978 and 1983, Ken Wardman and Barry Todd are just some of the other players who made their mark in later years.

*I didn’t cover the recent Betfred League One clash between London Skolars and the Dons at the New River Stadium but it reminded me of a game I covered down there the season they were promoted back to the Championship.

I had covered the Yeovil-Doncaster Rovers game on the Saturday and instead of driving back after the match and then spending a couple of hours writing up my reports prior to getting up early the next morning to travel down to the capital with Tony Miller’s men, I stayed overnight in Yeovil and headed off for London the next morning.

Everything was going well until the sat-nav packed in just as I hit the south west of the capital leaving me in a state of panic having no idea how to get to my north London destination.

It was an experience I would never want to repeat. Thankfully, I arrived at the Tottenham venue with 20 minutes to spare although that wasn’t the end of my problems. I found myself locked out of the press box, where my laptop charger was, after doing a couple of post-match interviews and when I eventually found somewhere quiet to compile my report and Tony’s reaction, the place shut down and with my battery almost out of charge I faced a race against time sat in my car to finish my reports. I managed it with seconds to spare.