IN the last articles of this series, it seems appropriate, with uncertainty over the future of the Cross Cup, that we should look at those players who have made the greatest impact over the years.

Inevitably, the same names as highlighted recently in the league bowling and batting aggregates will appear.

But before we discuss the highest run-scorers, tribute must be paid to one of the pioneers of the Association.

Walter Warburton, who we have mentioned earlier, surely must be the greatest Cross Cup performer of all time.

Walter played in 11 Cross Cup Finals for Eagley scoring 457 runs.

During his time the Cross Cup was contested by the clubs finishing first and second in the Championship, playing only one game.

When the competition returned to a knockout basis, he added another 500 runs, just missing out on the magical 1000.

A top score of 141 in the 1906 final against Farnworth remains the highest score in a final to this day, one of three centuries he scored in Cross Cup games.

To return to more modern times, Geoff Griffiths turned the tables on Mike Davies, the Association’s leading scorer in the league, with 1,678 against the latter’s 1,340, a result of a more successful cup career with Clifton and Little Hulton against Davies’s time at Edgworth.

In my last article I focussed on the batsmen who scored more than 10,000 runs in the league. Of those men, Alan Thomas had the best record in the Cross Cup, scoring 1,449 runs.

In this feature, I have concentrated on the players who joined the 10,000 club by combining their aggregate totals in the league and Cross Cup.

Nigel Geary is the best of the rest.

Alternating between Spring View and Standish, he added 1,050 to his 9,539 championship runs.

Geary had a further string to his bow and figures high in the list of wicketkeepers.

Another of the Association’s nomads, Brett Collins, scored 858 runs for Walshaw, Darcy Lever, Spring View and Standish.

Another year in the Association would probably have enabled Brett to join the 10,000 club as he was only just short with 9,662.

A similar question may have been asked of the remaining three players who were basically one club men.

Phil Royle served Clifton for 20 years and collected 10,943 runs made up of 826 in the Cross Cup and 9,667 in the league.

Rob Faulkner had a similarly lengthy period with Walshaw.

Despite highly successful league campaigns (9,704 runs) and two Cross Cup wins, Rob is down the list of Cross Cup scorers with a relative low total of 542.

It came as a surprise to myself to find Graham Marston appearing for Daisy Hill in 1986, prior to Golborne’s appearance in the Association, but 18 cup and 91 league runs in that season boosted his tally to 10,571, made up of 9,802 and 769 between 1989 and 2012.

An anomaly in this period of a player scoring heavily in the Cross Cup but not reaching the milestone was Adlington’s Lawrence Moore.

His Cross Cup record of 936 runs compares with the best but sojourns into the Bolton League and the Northern League left his Association Championship runs total at 8,555.

Sorry Lawrence, but even adding Vimto runs I could not get you into the 10,000 club.

In the next article we will look at the Cross Cup bowlers.