ROUNDERS in Bolton has a long history going back around 120 years to when it began as “the mill girls’ tennis.”

Teams from local textile mills and Sunday Schools played each other as the Bolton game evolved with its own distinctive flat bat as opposed to the rounder, baseball-type bat used elsewhere in the country and with some distinct rules.

Players competed at first in ordinary, long layered day clothes — including large hats. In fact, it was only believed to be around the 1930s that a rule banning the use of hat pins came in.

This “uniform” soon evolved into long gym slips, stockings and plimsolls to allow the young females more movement and the standard of the game locally also improved with greater athleticism.

The Bolton Sunday Schools’ Rounders League was founded in 1921 and this later became the Bolton Ladies’ Rounders League, which is the title it still holds today.

The sport is still thriving in and around Bolton — with a smaller although still highly competitive league running in Bury.

A visit from April to August to most local parks, playing fields, cricket and football clubs on any weekday will reveal teams of females of all ages playing the game.

There are currently 143 teams competing in 16 sections for the 2015 season, with 3,006 players signed on.

The sport has always been popular as a spectator sport, with decent numbers always turning up at matches. During the last century, however, huge crowds would gather for the highlight of the rounders’ year: the Chadwick Cup final.

Even now, there are always plenty of enthusiastic spectators for this end-of-season fixture which highlights the genuinely skilful play of the top teams.

Marjorie Innes started playing in the 1950s when she was a pupil at Bolton County Grammar School. She went on to play for a local company, Automotive Products, in the 1960s, and then founded a team which played at the Barlow Institute playing fields as Turton and Edgworth in the 1970s.

During the 1980s, she played for Hough Fold, Little Lever and then at Astley Bridge Cricket Club before playing for her final club, Darcy Lever Cricket and Social Club.

She has kept team photos from most of these, and shares them here. “I can remember some of the names of players but not all of them. But I’ve had some really great times playing rounders," she says.