Harrogate Cricket Club overcame Wetherby Carr Manor to win the Addison Cup in Knaresborough last night.
The Addison Cup, which is contested by the top 16 teams in the Harrogate and District Amateur Evening Cricket League, is one of the oldest cricket competitions in the world, dating back to 1922.
Harrogate scored 131 for 7 in their 20 overs then limited Wetherby Carr Manor to 99 all out.
Harrogate’s hero was captain Will Bates, who was named man of the match for scoring 59 in a game in which runs were hard to come by.

Will Bates collects his man of the match award.
Skilful, accurate bowling by Harrogate’s opening bowlers led to early wickets and the match was effectively over by the halfway stage of Wetherby Carr Manor’s innings.
Clive Addison, grandson of Harry Addison, who the cup is named after, presented the trophy at Knaresborough Cricket Club on Aspin Lane.
Next year the event will celebrate its 100th year.
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- Harrogate Cricket Club aims for Addison Cup glory
- Killinghall cricket club keeps pub-less village spirit alive
Harrogate Cricket Club aims for Addison Cup glory
Harrogate Cricket Club will take on Wetherby Carr Manor in Knaresborough today in the final of one of the oldest cricket competitions in the world.
The Addison Cup was first contested in 1922 and has been held every year since except 1943 and last year.
The 20-over competition is open to the top 16 teams in the Harrogate and District Amateur Evening Cricket League.
League members include Birstwith, Boroughbridge and Staveley, Burnt Yates, Goldsborough, KIllinghall, Knaresborough, Knaresborough Forest and Pateley Bridge.
This evening’s final will see past winners Harrogate, who are top of Division 1, against unbeaten Division 3 leaders Wetherby Carr Manor, who are making their first ever appearance in the final.
The match starts at 6.15pm at Knaresborough Cricket Club on Aspin Lane.
Peter Horsman, the league secretary, said:
“With all league and cup cricket cancelled last season because of lockdown, it would be great to see a good crowd on Monday.”
The Harrogate and District Amateur Evening Cricket League, which has 32 teams in five divisions, was founded in 1921 and in the following year the Addison Cup was presented to the league by the Addison family.
Members of the Addison family will attend and present the trophy this year.
A number of international test cricketers have played in the evening league, including New Zealand great Martin Crowe and West Indian batsman Rohan Kanhai.
Crowe was actually banned from the league for reacting badly to being given out — the glass in the changing room’s window suffered badly.
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- Killinghall cricket club keeps pub-less village spirit alive
- From Knaresborough’s Aspin estate to playing cricket for Yorkshire
Killinghall cricket club keeps pub-less village spirit alive
A cricket club is fostering community spirit after the last remaining pub in the heart of the village closed.
For years, Killinghall CC players enjoyed an after-match pint at the Three Horseshoes on Ripon Road.
But the pub has been razed to the ground to make way for a Tesco Express and The Greyhounds nearby has been closed for years, leaving one of the biggest villages in the Harrogate district bereft of pubs.
So the club, which is on a promotion charge in division two of Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League, has been opening its bar on match days and welcoming villagers along.
The move has proved popular as a steady stream of locals, not all of whom know the difference between a googly and a bouncer, enjoy the sun and a drink on Saturday afternoons.
Harvey Radcliffe, the club secretary, said:
“It’s important for us to be part of the village community. We used to support the Three Horseshoes and when it died we saw an opportunity for us to keep the community spirit going.
“We only open the bar when we are at home on Saturdays at the moment but we are hoping to open it on Fridays and Sundays too later in the year.
“We are trying to get a junior section going. If we can get more people down it might encourage more juniors to come along and play.”
After a nervy one-wicket win last weekend away to Alne, the club is back at its home ground on Otley Road today when the bar will be open for the match against Thornton Watlass.

A recent match in Killinghall
Killinghall are currently third in the division as they aim to return to division one after a five-year hiatus.
The team will be hoping for fair weather and a good crowd for this weekend’s event.
Mr Radcliffe said:
“A cricket club is the perfect place for an outside socially distanced event.”
“There’s an old fashioned village feel. Cricket is a massive social event. Sports clubs are important.”
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- Image Gallery: Demolition of historic Killinghall pub
- From Knaresborough’s Aspin estate to playing cricket for Yorkshire
Garry Irvine appointed president of Harrogate cricket club Druids
Druids Cricket Club, the historic Harrogate club founded in 1915, has appointed Garry Irvine as its president.
Mr Irvine is a former Druids captain as well as an outstanding rugby union player who captained Harrogate RUFC and represented an Anglo-Scots XV against the All Blacks.
His appointment follows the death of previous president Simon Corner, a much-respected figure in the Harrogate area.
Druids is a nomadic social cricket club that celebrated its centenary in 2015 with a match against the famous MCC.
Such is the club’s standing that it was invited to play Yorkshire as part of former England Test bowler Ryan Sidebottom’s testimonial year.
Mr Irvine said:
“It’s an enormous honour to be appointed president of this famous club, following in the footsteps of the legendary Simon Corner.
“I’m determined to carry on the great work that Simon and previous presidents have done over the past 100 years in maintaining the great traditions of fun and fair play that the Druids were founded upon.
“As a club, we’d also love to welcome new people to become part of this great Harrogate institution, whether as players or supporters.”
The club plays friendly fixtures against other social or local Harrogate clubs, usually on Sundays.
Players of all abilities and supporters are very welcome to join the Druids.
For more information, visit the club’s Facebook page or contact club secretary Mark Moorby at melmoorby@hotmail.com.
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- From Knaresborough’s Aspin estate to playing cricket for Yorkshire
- Phoebe Graham to promote women and girls at Harrogate Cricket Club
Phoebe Graham to promote women and girls at Harrogate Cricket Club
Professional cricketer Phoebe Graham has agreed to become Harrogate Cricket Club’s ambassador for women and girls’ cricket.
Graham, who is contracted to Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the Northern Diamonds, will provide regular girls coaching.
She will also act as a consultant to the club on how to expand its number of female players and grow the game in the Harrogate district.
Graham, who is a fast bowler and qualified coach, will advise the club on formulating a schools’ programme to encourage more girls to take up cricket and help it work with other clubs in the area to promote women and girls’ cricket.
The club currently includes about 25 girls, whose season is due to start next month.
For the first time ever, Harrogate’s girls’ section has entered a team in to the Nidderdale under-13 boys league this summer.
Graham, who also runs a gender equality consultancy, will now build on work done by head junior coach Andy Hawkswell, along with Nat Crossland and Tim Robinson to further develop the girls’ section.
Club chairman Steve Clark said:
“This new partnership is an incredibly exciting one. We hope it will be a long-lasting relationship that ensures that women and girls’ cricket continues to grow and thrive in Harrogate.”
Graham said:
“Providing women and girls with opportunities to play sport is something that I am extremely passionate about and I love Harrogate’s commitment and long-term ambitions to grow the female section.”
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- Fire, bankruptcy and coronavirus: Harrogate Cricket Club adapts to survive
- Cricket club to benefit from major Bilton Hall refurbishment
Cricket club to benefit from major Bilton Hall refurbishment
Bilton in Ainsty Cricket Club look set to build a new state-of-the-art pavilion thanks to a major refurbishment of Bilton Hall.
The club’s ground is on the Bilton Hall Estate near York but the club could only get funding from the England Cricket Board to build a new pavilion if they owned the land. So the Lloyd family, which owns the estate, stepped in to offer to pay for it.
The family is currently undergoing a multi-million-pound refurbishment of Bilton Hall.
Phil said it was an “amazing opportunity” to replace the previous wooden pavilion which is on its last legs. He said the new structure will cost six figures and will also include new changing rooms, a kitchen and a club room.
He added:
“Gifts like that don’t come across often.”
Phil said the village club regularly punches above its weight and last season played against bigger hitters such as Scarborough, Ripon, Easingwold.

Bilton Hall.
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The club recently submitted a planning application for the new pavilion and Phil said he hopes the parish council and Harrogate Borough Council can get behind it. He said it will be a “facility the local community can be proud of”
He added:
Indoor sports clubs face uncertain future under changing covid rules“I have played for the cricket club for my whole life. We’re all mates who have grown up together and now had children. The club is a focal point for the community.”
Indoor sports clubs say they can only hope they’ll be able to reopen after changes to government guidelines forced them to close their doors.
Any indoor sport with more than six adult participants has now been banned from today, after being exempt from the ‘rule of six’ introduced last week.
In Harrogate, some indoor sports clubs say the future looks “worrying” as they don’t know when they’ll be able to re-open – or whether their members will return.
Andy Hawkswell, founder of Harrogate Indoor Cricket League, said:
“It was a bit of a shock and of course very disappointing. We had 14 to 16 teams playing in the league this year – the demand was high because the summer season was halved.
“It’s worrying that after having so much time off, they may not come back. For a lot of the players, there is a huge social aspect to the game and they will miss out on that now.
“Unfortunately it’ll probably be a year out and we’ll have to hope there’s enough interest for next year if people return.”

This troop has had to suspend training again with its coach looking for employment elsewhere.
Megan Fairweather runs the Fire and Ice Cheerleading squad in Harrogate. It is a youth team, but some members are over 18 so the exclusions still apply.
The squad was only set up in September 2019, leaving Megan without financial support. She worries that with further delays the members won’t return.
She said:
“We haven’t been open since March – we were planning to reopen this week but we’ve had to cancel that. The government has come out with a list and because cheerleading isn’t registered as an official sport yet, it wasn’t put on the list.
“It’s a lot more complicated because it’s a contact sport. Even if we were to open with just strength and conditioning training some of the troop may drop it because they come to do stunts and they can do those at their gymnastics or dance classes.”