THEN & NOW: CLUB CRICKET IN BRIGG HAS SEEN SO MANY UPS AND DOWNS

Memories came flooding back as we watched the current Brigg Town Cricket Club players securing their first win of the season in Lincolnshire County League Division Three West at the weekend, helped by a half-century from Paul Neal and six wickets taken by Vijay Raju.
We played for the club from 1974 to 2004 and saw many ups and downs as fortunes fluctuated.
Club cricket was played by a Brigg club for much of the 19th century.
For many decades a ground within sight of the railway station was used, and a few treasured pictures have survived from the late Victorian period and also 1908 when the club displayed the coveted solid silver Dinsdale Trophy it had won.
However, the club folded in the 1930s, and the Second World War put paid to hopes of a relaunch, with many potential players away serving in the Forces and people having other summer priorities on the so-called Home Front, including growing food for the table and helping with the harvest.
Brigg Recreation Ground's opening in 1952 after the Urban District Council had converted part of Woodbine Farm to grass and some of its outbuilding buildings as changing room, got local cricketers thinking about re-forming the Brigg Town club at various times in the 1950s and the 1960s.
However, Brigg Sugar Factory and Elsham then had popular clubs for which a number of cricketers living in Brigg were playing.
So it was not until autumn 1973 that a meeting was finally held in the town to get things going again with the Rec as a venue, then having full-time groundstaff.
It was decided to enter one team in the Grimsby & District Saturday League, and the first home fixture was played in May 1974.
Brigg immediately won the Division Three championship, and the interest generated made it possible to form a second team in the Grimsby competition the following season.
A successful application was then made to join the Lincolnshire County Cricket League for 1976 - a season which also saw Broughton CC joining this senior competition.
Brigg won the Broughton & District Evening League Knockout Cup two years later, and there was talk in the late 1970s about the Town club joining together with some local footballers to acquire land for a new ground off Westrum Lane.
However, this was considered to be too much, too soon and was never carried through.
With hindsight, this project, if carried to fruition, could have avoided problems to be experienced by Brigg Town Cricket Club over the next 30 years.
Ownership of the Rec Ground passed from the UDC to Glanford Borough Council when this authority was formed in 1974.
However, upkeep of the playing square gradually became a resources issue.
Brigg Town Cricket Club started to hire Sir John Nelthorpe School's fine facilities where a full-time groundsman was in attendance.
The Lincolnshire League Division Three championship was won in 1979, with only two defeats being suffered during the entire campaign.
A second team was also re-introduced after a gap of four years, playing North Lindsey League home games at the Rec Ground.
But for various reasons a number of senior players decided to leave during the close season, resulting in Brigg Town resigning from the Lincs League and becoming founder members of the South Humberside Alliance (primarily aimed at 2nd and 3rd XIs).
The early 1980s provided some enjoyable cricket and growing interest, particularly among local youngsters.
But the club knew it really needed to get its first team back in the Lincolnshire League and to find a suitable venue to enable this to happen.
Both aims were achieved later in the decade after Barrie Briggs had returned as captain.
With the club able to use the well-appointed Sugar Factory ground off Scawby Road (with licensed clubhouse), Brigg became Humberside Alliance champions.
Although Town were elected back to the Lincs League, the early 1990s saw the closure of the local sugar factory, resulting in a return to Sir John Nelthorpe School.
Many enjoyable seasons followed for the first and second teams at SJN, but the eventual demolition of the wooden pavilion and adjoining former canteen building (used for teas) meant Town could no longer use the school ground.
This prompted a return to the Rec, but issues relating to the playing square and other factors saw Brigg eventually leave the Lincs League yet again.
The club kept going and briefly gained membership of the Lincoln & District Saturday League and also the East Yorkshire Alliance (from 2008).
It proved possible to gain re-admission to the Lincolnshire competition but playing home games on 'borrowed' grounds, particularly Brocklesby Park, while the Rec Ground facilities gained welcome investment under North Lincolnshire Council.
The eventual completion of this project which brought top-notch changing and showering facilities was something Brigg Town Cricket Club could have done with decades ago.
Today it has only one team, playing on Saturdays.
However, at various times decades ago it operated two Saturday sides, another on a Sunday, one or more midweek teams, and fielded junior age group sides for under-11s, under-13s, under-15s, under-17s and even under-19s.
The height of popularity for North Lincolnshire club cricket and leagues is reckoned to have been in the early 1990s. And Brigg Town's own fortunes reflect this.
As we left Brigg Rec after watching the early stages of Town's game last Saturday, former all-rounder Garry 'Gig' Smith was just arriving.
He played for the Elsham and Brigg Sugar Factory clubs before joining Town and starring, with others, in the Lincs League championship-winning side in 1979.
Having had a spell with East Halton, he returned to Brigg Town in the mid-1980s after Barrie Briggs had become captain.
His line-and-length seam bowling brought Gig an incredible number of wickets until he retired in the year 2000.
Even at 60 he was still a top bowler in Brigg's Lincs League line-up.
For much of a very long career he also opened the batting very successfully, although later dropping down the order.
Today's Lincs League rules only permit bowlers to send down nine overs of the 45 allocated in an innings, but in Gig's era there was no restriction and he sometimes operated throughout, bowling up to 23 on the trot from one end.
His change ball - a slower off-spinner - captured many wickets, and was known in the club as "Gig's Tweaker."
He performed the hat-trick (three wickets with successive deliveries) many times - doing so twice in the same game to set a Lincs League record.
But the hat-trick that's still talked about came he was still playing Broughton Evening League cricket for the Sugar Factory.
At the Scawby Road ground, he had taken two in two when a certain Town batsman came to the crease and attempted a reverse sweep - a stroke currently being employed effectively by England Test players but very rarely attempted at club level decades ago.
Needless to say, 'bowled G.S. Smith' was duly entered in the scorebook!

PICTURED ABOVE: Main image - Gig Smith (centre, front row) in his last game for Brigg Town, aged 60, in September 2000. Jack Richards (back row - third from right) and Phil Dewfall (front, extreme left) are still playing for the Brigg club today. Phil is Gig's great nephew. Also pictured (inset) are Paul Neal and Vijay Raju who turned in fine individual performances as Brigg beat Haxey 2nds at the weekend.

Gig Smith (front right) relaxing in the late 1980s as Brigg Town Cricket Club celebrated at the Sugar Factory Club. Those featured include skipper Barrie Briggs on the back row (extreme left) behind John McHale and near Garry Dunderdale and John 'Coke' Blanchard (head turned towards Barrie). Image courtesy of Simon Church (front, third from left) who later emigrated to Australia. 

Brigg Town at the Rec Ground in 1976 when the first home game was played after gaining admission to the Lincolnshire League. Seen with umpire Ray Atton, of Scawby Brook, are (back row) Brian Parker (currently Brigg Town Mayor), Allan Kemshell, Graham Mumby, Nigel Fisher, Graham Hunt, Peter Thompson. Front row (left to right) Peter Kerridge, Dave Foster, Dean Nutbrown, Keith Hunt and John Stead.

 

Brigg Town during a brief spell in the Lincoln Saturday League, circa 2007. Back row, left to right: Umpire Brian Cross, Paul Harrison, Jack Richards, Robert Todd, Danny Bradley, Willie McVey, umpire George Housham. Front row, left to right: Gary Smith, Dylan Hildreth, Tim Crisp, Jack Lucas, Jack Siddall, Joe Hebblewhite.

 

Brigg Town players displaying the Dinsdale Trophy in 1908. There would be a gap of 70 years before the club collected this silverware again!

Brigg Town cricketers of the late Victorian era with the railway station away in the background. Yes, it had a roof in those days when forming part of the mainline between Cleethorpes and Manchester.