LOCAL cricket clubs are being asked what the new expanded Bolton League's two divisions should be called.

Interested parties have until Monday to put their suggestions which will be voted on at the league's monthly meeting seven days later.

The Bolton League is increasing from its current 14 clubs to one division of 21 clubs next year and then two divisions from the year after.

There has been some talk of keeping alive the name of the Bolton Association which last week went out of existence after 126 years.

That is something I would like to see happen. The Association was the second oldest cricket league in the world and has always been very well run and respected, doing things in a proper way and setting high standards in administration and behaviour on the pitch.

It was the loser in a mad struggle among other leagues in the area to survive following a radical reorganisation in local cricket in the Greater Manchester area.

Sporting leagues don't tend to be over sensitive towards others as a rule, but there are many in the Bolton League who have an affinity to the Bolton Association, not least because it was itself born out of the Association when 12 clubs broke away in 1930, and there has been a good relationship between the two Bolton leagues, ever more so as time has gone on.

Having covered the Association closely over the last decade, and got to know the Bolton League better in the last year, the inclusion of the name 'Association' in the new Bolton League structure seems fitting.

For me it's easy. Call the top tier Division One and the second the Association.

And if the top tier gets ECB Premier League status, that would become the Premier League and the Association.

Develop, progress and keep your heritage alive.

Neil Bonnar