REMEMBERING HIGH-SCORING BRIGG TOWN CRICKET MATCHES DOWN THE DECADES

Brigg Town Cricket Club's game at Alford on Saturday in which the sides shared a very impressive 516 runs set us thinking about some other Lincolnshire League matches involving the club decades ago which also produced impressive aggregate totals.
Various factors have contributed to many more runs being scored, on average, in today's club game than was the case in decades past. But there were some notable exceptions...
We recall playing in a memorable match (in the late 1990s?) at Sir John Nelthorpe School when Cherry Willingham 2nds posted a massive 290 and Brigg 2nds were 252 for six (with six overs remaining) when the umpires abandoned proceedings on safety grounds due to bad light. Jim Copson batted well for Brigg and we might have gone on to secure a famous victory.
In the late 1980s, Brigg Town's first team matches were being played on the Sugar Factory sportsground at Scawby Brook with a 'par score' being not much more than 100. However, Brigg hit a real purple patch one sunny Saturday, scoring 215 against Normanby Park Works (a Scunthorpe club that continued for many years after the closure of the steelworks with which it had been closely allied for decades).
A Brigg first team away game at East Halton in 1979 was talked about by the village club for years and years. At a time when many Lincs League Division Three games were won with team totals well below 100, Brigg Town rattled up what was then a massive score - 232 for eight.
However, the villagers secured victory with several overs to spare - one of only two games Brigg lost that season while securing the divisional championship.
East Halton's players were so 'chuffed' with their successful run chase that they displayed the pages from the scorebook on a wall in the tea room - a wooden structure which had once been the booking office of the tiny village railway station/halt.
Every time a Brigg team visited East Halton in the seasons that followed, they read a reminder of a victory that had slipped through their club's fingers in 1979!
This beautiful rural ground was located on a farm, but the East Halton club (still going today) eventually departed to play home games in nearby Immingham.
The present Brigg Town Cricket Club was formed in 1974 and the few ex-players from that era who are still living locally  must be very surprised to see today's line-up playing in a match which generated 516 runs - three times the average of the 1970s.
Games back then were generally 40 overs a side (sometimes 35 if rain was forecast) compared with today's 45, but high-standard playing surfaces are one of the main reasons for the increase.
Mentioning that Cherry Willingham match reminds us that this game was under threat a few hours before the start. 'Yours truly' went down late in the morning to check the ground at Nelthorpe School only to discover that (for some reason) the pitch had not been prepared or marked out. This was duly rectified with assistance from one of the junior players; we are pretty sure he was Phil Dewfall, still playing for Brigg today.
However, when the Cherry lads arrived at the ground and inspected the square, they didn't seem impressed with what they saw.
Brigg won the toss, put the visitors into bat and one Cherry strokemaker, Jamie Burnett, duly scored a quickfire century.
With the teams going on to share 542 runs (with six overs going uncompleted) perhaps the visitors had revised their opinion of the Brigg playing square by the time they set off to drive back to the Lincoln area that evening!

PICTURED: Long-serving Brigg player Phil Dewfall (top left) and views of the cricket ground at Brigg Grammar, later Sir John Nelthorpe School.