BRIGG CRICKETERS SHARED LEAGUE RECORD PARTNERSHIP

 

High scoring Brigg Town Cricket Club matches which featured in a couple of our recent blog posts have been well received by current players and a number of former players.
In the latter category, big-hitting batsman Robert Todd has been in touch to say he "looked on in interest about the high scoring games." And Robert has takes things further by recalling a big batting stand in which he shared many years ago.
"Gary Smith and I had a 161 opening partnership in the Broughton Evening League which I think at the time was a record," Rob adds.
We are now keen to hear from other Brigg players of the past about big batting stands, or other memories of their time with our local club, formed in 1974.
As we walked through Brigg last night, in fine and sunny weather, we thought about games long past in this local evening league, which Brigg Town first joined around 1976/77. For some time this competition boasted three divisions.
Games were usually 14 eight-ball overs an innings - eight, rather than six, reducing the time taken to change fielding positions between overs.
Matches started at 6.30pm and usually took a couple of hours to complete. In early May and by mid-July bad light during the second innings could become an issue, but we can't recall any being abandoned because of gloomy conditions.
When Brigg Town kept very detailed records (updated at the end of every season) we recall featuring in the club's best Broughton Evening League 10th (last wicket) stand - a mighty seven runs (scored with two shots).
This low total stood for many years; the reason being that it was very rare (in only 14 overs) for Brigg's 11th and last batsman to get to the crease!
Robert Todd featured in an early Brigg Blog post about local cricket which went online in November 2008.
This was about the local club's annual general meeting, held at the Nelthorpe Arms pub on Bridge Street.
Robert Todd chaired proceedings, with Lee Fielden delivering the secretary's report and Dylan Hildreth dealing with the cash side of things.
We noted: "Lee, Jack Richards and Gary Smith gave encouraging reports about the youth teams - sides are run from under-11 up to under-17 - and Joe Hebblewhite reported on the debut season in the West Wold Midweek League."
Brigg Town's first team finished third in East Yorkshire Alliance Division Three, with the second team being runners-up in division four. The Sunday team also held its own in the North Lindsey League."
We added: "Second team skipper Phil Dewfall, who was unable to make the meeting, is to continue in the post next season but will get some experienced help as Dave Willey has returned to the club for which he made his debut in 1974.
"As regular Blog and Scunthorpe Telegraph readers may be aware, Brigg Town's first team has been re-elected to the Lincolnshire League for 2009 and will play in Division Four."
Brigg Blog launched in October 2007 so the 2008 season (mentioned above) was the first in which we reported cricket matches.
Brigg Town are still Lincs League members and have a home game coming up this weekend which will feature in our weekend preview later in the week.

The picture above shows Brigg Town's first team which played East Halton at the Recreation Ground during the 2008 season. Robert Todd and Gary Smith are third and second from right respectively on the back row. 

Below we see Brigg's midweek team at the Rec on a sunny evening that season when they hosted Owmby during the club's debut season in the West Wold League. This was Owmby-by-Spital (off the A15 on the way to Lincoln) not Owmby between Brigg and Caistor.

If you missed our previous posts about major Brigg run-scoring efforts, here are the links...

REMEMBERING HIGH-SCORING BRIGG TOWN CRICKET MATCHES DOWN THE DECADES

BRIGG TOWN CRICKETERS INVOLVED IN A REAL RUN FEST