DRUIDS CRICKET CLUB

A short history of the early years.

The club was originally founded in march 1915 by C.J Simpson,”Bud” Roberts and A.M. Bentley with a view of keeping cricket going so long as possible during the war providing games for men serving in the forces or anyone unable to join up.

Unfortunately, owing to the difficulties in obtaining fixtures and players, it was only possible to play three or four matches- including Patley Bridge and Stockdale Park.

The Playing Members;-C J Simpson, A Hepton (killed in action),H G beard, Walter Render,K Sutcliff (killed in action) JWS Budd, Bud Roberts, JR Appleyard (believed killed) W Suttle and AM Bentley

The Club was then suspended until CJ Simpson and AM Bentley returned to Harrogate in the winter of 1925/26 when it was decided ( on the steps of St James picture house ! ! !) to restart operations.

CJ Simpson immediately began to get fixtures for the 1926 season and we had quite a good list- probably16-18 games- of course nothing like the fixture list is now, bearing in mind in those days there was no Sunday cricket.

The playing members in 1926 were mainly:- CJ Simpson(Capt.) AM Bently (v Capt.), W Render,HG Beard,JWS Bud, Bert Moore, Bill Shutt, G. O.D Craven, A. Aney, Geo.Newby(Bradford), ER Chaffer, SB Root, W Simpson.

Quite a reasonable lot on the whole but not so strong as the team available now –a-days.

The club then flourished steadily until the end of the 1939 season when after fourteen enjoyable and happy seasons the second world war interrupted matters again until re-start by present stalwarts in 1947.

In the 1926-1939 period one or two features worth mentioning are:-

(a) In addition to local fixtures – Pannal being considered as being one of the main ones being a very good side in those days- two day matches were played with a strong Northumberland side “ The Raiders” and fixtures were fulfilled with Richmondshire, Menston Hospital, Horsforth Hall Park, Boroughbridge and Becca Hall, RE Signal Depot at Catterick, Craven Gentlemen, all of which provided a reasonable standard of cricket.

(b) A tour at bank holiday was operative for many years with Hovingham,Kirby moorside, Pickering, Easingwold and Hunmanby as opponents. The headquarters of the club was at the Royal Hotel, Scarborough and The Cambridge Hotel after being sacked- it is shameful to say by the royal.

(c) Dances were held at the Crown Hotel, Harrogate, on several occasions although not every year. Tickets incidentally were good value at 6/6d!

(d) The club was always lucky as regards scorers and usually it was, as later, a lady, Lena Simpson or Edith Bentley, functioning almost as efficiently as Mary Horner. IT was not often however that we had a regular umpire- Noel Ledgard officiated on occasions.

THE DRUIDS CC 1947-1978

Past President Alfred, a founder member of the club,has written a report on the club which covered the years to the out break of the last Great War, September 1939. I have been asked by our secretary to put on record the club s activities for those years after the war had ended until the present time (1978).

In 1947 Norman Ellis was our secretary and organiser. Bless him; he put in a lot of hard enthusiastic work. Many of us had been wearing uniform for six long years, and it was a treat indeed to get back into cricketing flannels. Perhaps this change of dress induced some levity.

We found it difficult to raise eleven players…….. We would meet at the “North Eastern" 2 o’clock on the Saturday. Norman would have phoned on the Friday night….. “We are three short; see what you can do “…. This often meant that we had to look in at one or two pubs on the way to try and smell out an eleventh man.
When it came to the first annual meeting…. Held at the Harlow Carr Hotel….(now the Harrogate Arms), Norman came out with proposition that as during last season we had often been short of a player or two, for next season he planned to run two teams, which meant that one team at least would have a full compliment. We though it not to be very logical, Norman took his bat home temporarily, and so Stanley Horner became secretary.

I would mention that our co founder Jack Simpson, a great worker for sport, a good man, had called a special meeting of some of the pre war Druids to discuss the merging of our club with Harrogate Cricket Club. I believe Jack would be President of the latter at the time.

The members who attended at Jacks house included Donald Thompson, Billy Simpson, Gordon Newby and Ken Shepard….. And the decided that the club would remain independent. I believe we are all grateful to these members.

In 1948 we did not bother with committee meetings. Mary Horner was a keen supporter, scorer, and it was usually left to her and the captain at the time, to choose the next week’s team. I believe it was decided without a meeting being called that Alfred Bentley should be asked to be our president, that Donald Thompson should be Hon. Treasurer, and that Billy Simpson should be our captain, and that we should have a DIFFERENT CAPTAIN EACH YEAR… this being decided on by seniority of membership. IT seems to have worked very well indeed. I think that in those early years we should play about 20 matches in the season…. In 1950 I see from the fixture card that we played 24. One team against whom we always tried to field “a star studded team” was Hovingham.
The Druids, then as now, were always a closely knit team, enjoying each others company as much off the field as on it, and as the Irishman said, if it was in a pub, more so.

The fixture list became longer, and varied. Colin Clarke, who had first come into the team to make up the numbers at Burnt Yates, proved himself a good opening bowler, and fielder, if not of brilliance, at least of reliability. Because of Colin we started the Newcastle weekend playing St. Georges Rovers on the Saturday, and L.S.M. at Burnhills on the Sunday.

We had a lot of fun, and some very good games. Donald Thompson, a good club cricketer hung his boots up, and his Treasurer Ship, and Gordon Newby then looked after the money side. As you can imagine, Gordon was keen and hard…. And did a first class job.

Alfred resigned as President in 1962, and Colin was elected. Another happy choice this has proved to be. The club presented Alfred with a silver salver at a ceremony at the George Hotel. Whilst on about hotels, we had some excellent dances….. At the Prince of Wales, the Grand, the Cairn, the Old Swan…..Social occasions they were, with Eddie Harpers famous orchestra.. None of your damned raucous discos in those days.

How the quality of living has sunk, I realise on typing these words, we each have more of everything, but a lot of the quality of living has diminished.( sorry Simon ). But they were good dances, with form, discipline, and some tradition.

Whilst this fact may not be of prime interest to the present members, it is fair to state that the club had several really good players in their ranks in the 1926-1939 era, the main being:-

Geo. Denham (ex Bradford league)
Eddie Simpson (ex Knaresborough)
Jack Walker (the man of iron)
David Armitage (the only real gentleman the Druids ever had)
P.O. Simpson (who died in world war two)
Jack Webster ( Cambridge and Northampton county-occasionally).

Also in this period Gordon and Kenneth Newby, Ken Shepard, Donald Thompson and Stanley Horner and J.N. Ellis who became a very hard working secretary-all thanks to him joined us.