IT was with great interest I read about proposals to reintroduce the Cross Cup as part of the coming season's Bolton Cricket League programme.

Such is the tremendous history of this very special trophy it does indeed deserve to be perpetuated in the right way – namely by continuing contests on the greensward.

I earnestly hope the initiative of Eric Hogg and colleagues is successful.

Reading about the plans promptly took me on a trip back to the 1980s when I was a member of the executive committee of Bolton and District Cricket Association. It was a great pleasure and privilege to have been the co-ordinator of the sub- committee charged with the multi-faceted celebrations which marked the centenary of the Bolton Association in 1988 in such fine style.

From around 1985, I embarked upon a great deal of fascinating research, much of which was ultimately embraced by the Association's commemorative publication, Cotton Town Cricket, authored by Roy Cavanagh MBE.

There arose a very thorny question, namely that of precisely where the Bolton Association stood in the hierarchical chronology of league cricket.

While we ultimately settled for calling ourselves the world's second oldest cricket league, perhaps, in hindsight, we should have been a little more forceful, and claimed the ultimate accolade for ourselves.

The Bolton Association was formally established on November 9,1888 at an open meeting convened for the town's many cricket clubs and held at The Coffee Tavern on Bradshawgate.

A few weeks later, a similar gathering occurred in Birmingham, with the outcome being the formation of the Birmingham and District Cricket League.

During the subsequent cricket season in the summer of 1889 the Bolton Association only played a knockout competition while Birmingham played league cricket.

League games were not played in the Bolton Association until the following season.

So, should the determining factor be the formation date of the formalised cricket body, or the date when league cricket was first played?

The event which conspired against us was the fact the Birmingham League's publicity relating to their centenary was slightly ahead of ours and their commemorative history publication was entitled First In The Field.

Perhaps this put us on the back foot. We certainly could not have called our book Second In The Field. But publication of Cotton Town Cricket was imminent, and seemed particularly appropriate anyway.

Much of the centenary year research focused upon the Association's magnificent array of trophies, with pride of place being the first two cups donated in the immediate wake of the league's formation, namely The Senior Challenge Cup and The Junior Challenge Cup, which are of identical vintage.

While these are the official names of the trophies, they came to be known more commonly as The Cross Cup and The Isherwood Cup after the names of the respective donors.

Edward Cross JP was one of the town's most noted citizens, and a prominent businessman with interests in textiles, as well as being co-owner of Bolton's first bank.

Without doubt, the Cross Cup and Isherwood Cup are Lancashire's oldest cricket trophies, a fact acknowledged in a high-profile way by Lancashire County Cricket Club throughout the 1988 season when they featured as the centrepieces of an impressive display of Bolton Association trophies, medals and memorabilia in the museum at Old Trafford.

We identified only a couple of older cricket in trophies in England still being contested, namely The Northampton Town Cup, and Yorkshire's Heavy Woollen Cup.

While proudly claiming Lancashire's oldest cricket trophies, there is little doubt the Cross and Isherwood cups predate virtually all other cricketing trophies in the world.

None of the major first-class trophies of the test-playing nations are older.

South Africa's Curry Cup was first contested in 1890, Australia's Sheffield Shield in 1893, New Zealand's Plunket Shield in 1907.

Bolton can be massively proud of its cricketing history, and as the introduction to Cotton Town Cricket tells us, our town, along with Barbados, Bombay and Bradford, is one of the world's most noted cricketing hot spots.

David Kaye

Life member of Bolton and District Cricket Association and president and life member of Lostock Cricket Club