North Yorkshire & South Durham league division 2
Saturday 8th May 2010
Ground: Bedale Athletic & Sports Association
League: North Yorkshire & South Durham league division 2
League: North Yorkshire & South Durham league division 2
Admission: Free
Score: Bedale-178-7 Whitby-179-2
Programme: no
Attendance: 5
Capacity: 1000
Seated: 17
Covered: 0
Town/City: Bedale
Opposition: Whitby
Date: 8.5.10
Club shop: no
Floodlights: no
Bedale is a small town in Hambleton in North Yorkshire. It has a population of 4,500.
The town is of no significance and has little sporting names. Apart from the Cricket club there is only the football club to represent the town. Bedale Town fc play in the Harrogate & District league Premier Division. They share the premises with Bedale CC and you'll see the back of their 50 seat stand in some of the pictures.
With the cricket season only recently getting underway, I was excited to see what sort of grounds Northern England could bring up. My first stop this season was Bedale who play in the North Yorkshire & South Durham league division 2. Their opposition were to be Whitby from the North East coast. I took the 157 bus from Leyburn towards Bedale and got off at the Market place. It was then a 10 minute walk back the way the bus had come to get to the ground about 1/2 mile out of town. I arrived at the match quite late but thankfully there was a scorebox to tell me Bedale were 40-2. The match dragged along with Bedale slowly getting points, but finally their 50 overs were up and Whitby were able to show them how it's done. The first two batters, Paul Harrison and Matthew Cooper, batted extreely well clocking up 163 runs between them before Cooper was finally bowled out by Edward Wick. Mark Harrison came on, and with 16 runs needed the end was very near for the home side. But on his first bowl Mark Harrison was caught out by Oliver Ward without getting a single run. However Ron Lyth came on as the 4th batter, and him and Paul Harisson got the runs Whitby needed to win the match. A walkover for Whitby, and a nightmare for Bedale. Bedale are currently 8th with 47 points while Whitby are 5th and 9 points off top spot. Darlington RA are at the top with 80 points while Billingham Synthonia 2nds are rock bottom with 16.
The Bedale ground has nothing significant about it. There is a side screen at the North End and fencing to stop the ball going into other fields, but that's about it. There are 7 benches, 6 at the South end and 1 at the North end. There is a tractor shed in the North West corner and the changing rooms at the South end. All the focus is on the football pitch of course but many forget there is a cricket ground there at all. It would be great to see more people watching lower league cricket, as you'll see from the attendance (above) it didn't prove that popular.
