Farewell Bolton and District Cricket Association – a league with an incomparable history and genuine claim to title of world's oldest league

I FELT a deep sense of sadness when reading The Bolton News, as the finality of the sad saga surrounding one of Bolton's most historic and cherished sporting institutions – the Bolton and District Cricket Association – hit home so forcibly.

For so many years, 'th'Association' constituted a very special thread in my personal tapestry of life, and I shall forever be thankful for the pleasure and stimulation that Association cricket provided over so many happy summers.

It was a great privilege to have been able to contribute a modest amount to an incomparable history.

Along with many others, perhaps inwardly realising the odds were stacked against it, I continued to harbour hopes that someday, somehow, this marvellous local sporting icon would be revived and rejuvenated.

I hoped more chapters would be written in the compelling story which commenced way back in 1888.

Reactivation of the suspended league would have meant a little reversal of the carnage inflicted upon the time-honoured league cricket scene in the North West in recent years (and to what end?).

But, in the wake of the most reluctant and heart-rending decision made by the Association officials, those hopes appear finally extinguished.

Never was the age-old maxim: 'You don't know what you've got until it's gone', more appropriate, since, without doubt, such was the impact the Bolton Association had on our summer national sport in the town, that it enjoyed a marvellous national – indeed international – reputation for many decades.

It grew to be one of the largest and most innovative cricket leagues in the land, responsible for many firsts with regard to the administration of the game at local level, not least the introduction of neutral umpires.

Focusing on the topic of firsts, one scarcely knows where to begin.

It is beyond doubt the Bolton Association was clearly the first cricket league in Lancashire – which, along with Yorkshire, is universally acknowledged as the birthplace of competitive league cricket.

In deliberating the validity of claiming the ultra-prestigious title of the world's oldest cricket league, we somewhat reluctantly settled for the silver medal when celebrating the Association's centenary 30 years ago.

I have often wondered, over the past three decades, whether we should have been more resolute in claiming the title, but at the time, circumstances seemed to conspire against it.

A brief recap: the Association was officially constituted as an organised cricketing body at a meeting held in Bolton town centre on November 9, 1888.

A little more than a month later, 100 miles to the south, The Birmingham and District Cricket League was formed. The resultant grey area stems from the fact that, during the subsequent 1889 season, the Birmingham League played league cricket – with points and a table – whereas the Bolton Association played only for the iconic Cross Cup in a knockout competition.

A moot point as to which league is the elder? – most certainly.

A second factor was the Birmingham League published a commemorative history which they entitled 'First in the Field', thus reinforcing their claim to the title, and this left the Bolton Association a little wrong-footed.

Eventually we opted for the most apposite 'Cotton Town Cricket', published a little while later.

My periodic regrets that we did not push our case a little harder back in 1988 were further reinforced by a memorable meeting with a truly eminent cricketing personality at Lord's just last month.

What were the circumstances which took me to Lord's on a wet and windy day in February?

There is a very relevant link with the Association.

During the centenary year, a sub-committee of the Bolton Association worked very hard and creatively to do justice to a very special milestone in Bolton's sporting history, with one of many aspects being a truly outstanding exhibition of Association memorabilia and ephemera, initially staged at Bolton Central Library.

There were many artefacts of great relevance and interest on display, with the centrepieces the two original trophies presented on the formation of the league – the Cross Cup and the Isherwood Cup.

Such was the widespread impact this exhibition had that it attracted visitors from Old Trafford.

One of these was Keith Hayhurst, at the time a member of the Lancashire County Cricket Club committee, and the driving force behind the new and ultra-impressive cricket museum at Old Trafford.

So impressed was Keith with the Bolton Association display he invited us to transfer a segment of it to the county headquarters, where it was placed prominently in one of the glass-fronted display cabinets in the museum for the remainder of the season. Quite marvellous.

Thus began a long personal friendship with Keith, one aspect of which was that he persuaded me to join the relatively new Cricket Memorabilia Society, of which he was a founder member, and ultimately its long-serving chairman and magazine editor.

Fast forward to a few months ago and the last Cricket Memorabilia Society magazine issue of 2017 informed members, at the Lord's meeting of the society in February, Keith would be resigning as chairman after over three decades in the post.

He was to be elected president in succession to such cricketing royalty as Don Bradman, John Arlott and Tom Graveney.

I felt the need to make the pilgrimage to HQ, and was glad I did for various reasons.

One was I had the great honour of meeting one of my all-time cricketing heroes, although not one famed for monumental activities on the field, but off it.

His name will only be known to cricket aficionados but David Frith is a true colossus of the game.

He is one of cricket's most renowned authors, founder/editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly, and the world's number one collector of cricket memorabilia.

It is difficult to grasp the extent of this amazing man's collection, but some indication can be gained from the fact a little while back he spent five years producing a catalogue, and the resultant 'David Frith Archive' is a limited-edition hardback volume containing 1073 pages.

Here is a man whose opinions on cricket are known and respected globally, and henceforth worth heeding.

I was very humbled I was able to speak to him for some time, and in response to his various questions, told him something of my most modest cricketing background in Bolton.

I had the opportunity of airing our oldest-league dilemma, and was taken aback by his response.

"You were instituted first, so had a bona-fide claim to the title – you should have gone for it," he said.

Flattering though his response was, and although we can indeed still do that, it now equates to no more than a pyrrhic victory.

All that said, recent happenings cannot diminish the cherished personal memories of the legions of local cricketers who all owe great debts of gratitude for what the Bolton Association has given them.

The Bolton News has reminded us all of some truly astonishing statistics relating to the Bolton Association, notably there have been well over 300 constituent member clubs over its history.

This has meant the organisation impacted upon countless thousands of lives, with innumerable families identifying closely with our many individual clubs.

There are many examples of several successive generations of those families being inextricably linked with their much-loved local clubs.

While the Bolton and District Cricket Association is now passive rather than active, 'th'Association' will live forever in the hearts and minds of many.

Concluding on another personal perspective, while the historic body corporate is no more, many of the former constituent clubs continue to thrive, and long may that continue.

My own club, Lostock CC, has experienced some very exciting chapters in recent times, with the opening of our new ground and clubhouse in 2017, and all seems set fair for the season ahead, during the course of which we shall be celebrating 80 years of cricket at Lostock.

By comparison with many local clubs, we are still a relative junior, but perhaps we can claim some bizarre sort of title for the club which has played its cricket under the largest number of names, embracing Dee Havilland, Hawker Siddeley, British Aerospace, Lostock (BA) and latterly as the independent Lostock Cricket Club.