Cricket
From Baslow to Ollerton...
It must have been around 1982. Three teenagers wanted to play club cricket and saw an advertisement by ‘Old Firparnians’ in the Green ‘Un for ‘Sunday friendly team playing in Derbyshire villages’. Following a phone to confirm the next practice, we were duly dropped off by parents at Colley Sports Hall.
We loved playing cricket. On a sloping sports field, where we crawled through a hole in the fence, we’d set up stumps against the wire fencing and play. One batsman, one bowler and one fielding on the off-side. Any snick behind to the first panel was out. Anthing played on the on-side didn’t count as runs. We’d all been to Cheltenham to a cricket training week. Ex-county professionals ran it and Tom Graveney and John Edrich were in attendance. There were some good young players there – I wonder if any made it professionally? We did our bit, learnt a few things and had a good time. I clean bowled John Edrich and James got Tom Graveney to play on. Oh, and Toby took a catch(!)
(Old) Old Firparnians
Old Firparnians was a team filled with middle-class professionals – and was in desperate need of new blood. We were fearless and irreverent, and a breath of fresh air. The team included Jack and Andy Winter, Nick Johnson, Steve May, Andy Smedley, Dave Booth and others I wish I had scorebooks to name. Simon France, Rob France and James Malone all made our Old Firparnians debuts at Baslow that year. We played (on and off) for Old Firps for over 25 years. During that time, I proudly captained the side for several years. I helped keep the club going for many of those. Wrangling a side – often only the night before in the pub – to keep fixtures fulfilled. Five people in my mother’s Mini, together with the club bag, visting Derbyshire villages was a regular occurence.
Significantly, 2002 was a turning point for me with the Old Firparnians. Most of the old guard had gone; replacements were not of the same ilk. The AGM that year at Brinsworth Phoenix was the sign of the point of no return. It was time to look elsewhere. I did play for the Firps again, but less frequently and with much less enthusiasm.
Swing bowler for hire
Undoubtedly, I’ve been a bit of a cricketing nomad. I had played for the Three Magpies midweek and Saturday. At that time, the excellent bowler Freddy ‘The Cockle Man’ Gibson was there and I was playing three times a week. I played (admittedly awfully) for British Steel’s First XI for a season, moving to the Sheffield League to play for Bayfield. Although I have no idea how I got there (perhaps I was introduced by Alistair Budd?), they were a decent bunch and I played for them for several years. It appears I only have the stats for three of them; more’s the pity. From there I played less frequently for a while with a growing family, until, in 2009, my brother coaxed me back into the game to play for Edwinstowe in the Bassetlaw & District League.
Those were good times without a doubt. I was older and we were really coaching the youngsters starting up with the club. Even though I only have one year of database stats for my time there, I played for them for many years. After that, the Third XI become the Second XI, then moved to Sunday games, until that team finally folded along with so many of those in the region. In that time, I took my second hat-trick and was standing at square leg to see my brother score his only century following many near misses.
This train terminates here...
My final stopping point was Ollerton Colliery – again at the request for help from my brother. I was only helping due to a shortage of numbers, but a decent bowling performance at Clumber Park meant I would return to become a regular for a couple of years. I played until just past my 50th birthday. Ollerton won every home game that year, gained promotion and then promptly folded due to several retirements like my own.
Moreover, my elder son played in that match, even though not a cricketer (or on the official score sheet as he wasn’t registered), to help with numbers. Four of the XI playing were surnamed France and it was a comfortable win. Additionally, I made another good contribution with the ball ( 4 overs, 3 maidens, 4 wickets for 1 run) to take the bowling award and, the icing on the cake, was voted Player of the Year by my team mates – something that undoubtedly should have been the case back in 2002. What a way to finish. I had been tempted to play since, but nothing could top that finale.
Undeniably, I’m so glad that was my swansong – I may not walk unaided again, and will certainly never be able to run, so it was the perfect way to bow out. However, I will never forget those early days at Old Firparnians – picked up and dropped off, playing at some beautiful grounds, being bought under-age pints afterwards, playing drunk at Stannington as we were sure it would be rained off and all before the age of 18…
Old Firparnians Cricket Club Website
But how did it start? I have little recollection of my motivation in the first place. I’d had a PC for a few years. After much angst, I plumped for a 486. Even paid an extra £200 for an additional 4MB of RAM! The bundled Office package on 13 floppy discs introduced me to Access. Together with some help from contributors on the Raybiez forums, I discovered Dreamweaver (and then Ultradev) and I was away.
As a consequence of my Windows hosting being closed, a complete rebuild of the whole the thing was necessary. Utilising PHP-MySQL made it sustainable and look less old than its 20+ years at the same time.
 Once I’d cut ties with the team, I let the domain lapse and took the data offline, but always kept a copy. I’ve put it back online now, using the modernised version. Here are the records I’ve kept, along with the Ollerton, Bayfield and Edwinstowe data I have. Links to them are below.
Old Firparnians
My first foray into data-driven websites. Began with Dreamweaver Ultradev and an Access-based data setup. Since revamped for the 21st Century...
Edwinstowe Cricket Club
Bassetlaw League records only for 2010 sadly. Wonder if we started moving to Play Cricket for all their stats as Callum was scoring? Little data for all my time at Edwinstowe.
Ollerton Colliery
The last stop on my cricketing journey. Good people and plenty of wickets! Only a couple of years' record from 2016 and 2017 and they sadly folded shortly afterwards.
Bayfield Sports CC
Very little about these on the internet. Formed from a merger of Dunford Hadfield and Brown Bayley's teams from memory. Records from 2001-2003 are all I have for them.
