Crowing About Crakehall: Inside Yorkshire’s Most Charming Village Cricket Ground
Brews on the Boundary is a celebration of grassroots cricket, taking readers beyond the scorecards to explore the distinctive grounds, characters and traditions that sustain the village game in Yorkshire. Combining match reports with local history, conversation and an appreciative eye for a good cricket tea, the book captures the pleasures of spending a summer afternoon beside the boundary.
In this extract, author John Fuller visits Crakehall in Bedale, discovering the story of its remarkable village ground while following the action on the field and meeting the people who give the club its character…
Crowing About Crakehall
In a roundabout way, I can thank Bradford’s inner-city development for discovering the delights of Crakehall Cricket Club. An expectation of heavy traffic congestion meant that a trip over to Woodlands, of the Bradford Premier League, would have to wait. Getting across to the village of Oakenshaw through the heart of the city, or indeed via the ring road, came with the promise of gridlock due to roadworks.
The pivot: another village near a motorway, albeit in completely the opposite direction. A 100-mile round trip to Crakehall, a village in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, off the A1(M). Their ground, on the village square with its tiny boundaries, has cropped up in recommendations before and that moment had arrived.
A theme of my last book had been red kites and an assortment of birds of prey on trips to the cricket. It’s something I look out for now we have a car, as a non-driver myself and my wife learnt to drive in her 40s.
Once we’d bobbed past Pool-in-Wharfedale and headed towards Harrogate, a pleasing five-minute purple patch gifted us half a dozen bird sightings. Red kites hooping gracefully above our vehicle and, at one point, a buzzard fighting with a raven.
There had been an accident on the A1(M) and the traffic slowed to a crawl past Knaresborough. Ever-efficient Google Maps had already fired up an alert and picked out another route in real time. It’s a game of stick or twist when it’s a fresh journey. Is the suggested diversion actually sensible?
A static wall of cars as far as the eye could see suggested avoiding that section of the motorway had saved us hours – and, as things turned out, we might have missed all of the cricket match.
“One gigantic tree”
The A684 deposited us at the village of Crakehall to park up on a section of grass across from the pub. With the sun blazing down and the mercury in the mid-twenties, we were set fair.
A languid stretch and a panoramic gaze followed. Near us is a line of pretty stone cottages, then sweeping further round is the ivy-covered Georgian country house of Crakehall Hall. A giant Grade II* listed building, with the cricket ground as next-door neighbour.
The Hall’s owner, Russell, is the cricket club president and occasionally appears with a collection of balls that have been fired over the handsome, high garden walls.
As we walk around to say hello to spectators and then plonk ourselves on a bench by the pavilion for a picnic, it dawns quite how close we are to the match. The wicketkeeper behind the poles can likely hear the rustle of my crisp packet as if I were fielding at slip.
Their opponents, Burton Leonard 2nd XI, have just started batting in this Division 7 encounter of the Theakston Nidderdale League. There can’t be many village cricket clubs in Yorkshire that still play on the green. Thornton Watlass, another beautiful postage stamp, springs to mind.
Not to labour the point but, watching from square of the wicket, we are really close. A gentle forward push can – and does – whistle for four.
A few feet in front of us is one of the giant sycamores that line this gorgeous ground. I’m told it has lime trees too. Would it be wrong to admit identifying one gigantic tree from another without Googling is not within my skillset?
Importantly, it is enormous, one of a line inside the boundary, and the long branches hang down within a deft scoop, switch-hit or slog. Which brings us neatly to local rules.
If you hit any part of that tree, it’s four. In fact, if you belt it high and handsome 100 metres, IPL-style, into the upper branches… it is still four. No sixes allowed here.
Local customs duly acknowledged, allow me to briefly give you the rest of the tour.
“Relaxed friendliness”
There’s the dark brown wooden pavilion just next to us. The scoreboard is built into it and just has runs, wickets and overs. The numbers are changed by hand and strings hang down. There is a separate blackboard showing the last innings score elsewhere.
A little kitchen is situated centrally with a small changing room on either side. The scorers are sat out while a table and chair bear the marks of a cricket match in play. Jugs of orange squash largely emptied, blue plastic cups, water bottles and a green hardback and ring-bound scorebook.
It is reminiscent of the pavilion I used to change in as a teen in Somerset and, for that reason alone, I stand and stare appreciatively.
To our left at the top end of the ground is another row of stone cottages, so that they act as bookends. Opposite, as the crow flies, is the St Gregory’s churchyard wall. It’s well known in that the corner juts out and forms part of the boundary.
Today, it’s as if our side of the playing area is marginally closer but, later in the season, when pitches are cut further away, you’d be able to pad up on the church wall and then stride into bat in a dozen steps.
Any which way, it’s the smallest boundary-to-stumps distance I’ve seen, with shout-outs to Thornton Watlass, Glasshouses and Triangle, of the ones I know. There are quite a few grounds that are small in places but nothing that has felt quite so intimate as Crakehall.
It’s not fully enclosed and the longer grass stretches out beyond to the main road, where occasionally the rumble of a farm vehicle interrupts the tranquillity. Or maybe adds to it.
Crakehall’s cricketers are used to visitors. They are clearly proud of their patch and patient with the many repeat questions across the seasons from first-timers. Again, there was a relaxed friendliness.
Crakehall’s secretary, Luke Haslam, gave me a snapshot of why the village club is currently in a good place. Bucking either the trend, or the narrative, that village cricket is perpetually in crisis, they are settled, seemingly not short of players nor financially struggling.
The local pub, The Bay Horse Inn, sponsors the shirts and is the heartbeat of the village. There’s also the annual fundraiser with a match against an Emmerdale XI, although that’s not happening this year.
There is a simplicity here that is resonating almost as loudly as the resident birdlife. Crakehall’s name is believed to derive from the Saxon word ‘cracas’, meaning settlement. Or, as I do, you may prefer the interpretation that its identity is from the Old Norse ‘kráka’, meaning crow. They are in fine voice this afternoon, I can tell you.
To finish my train of thought, the cricket club doesn’t have covers, sightscreens or even running water. No juniors either. They are a one-team club. Two teams if you count the Wensleydale Evening League side, but I imagine there’s plenty of crossover.
“Pleasant afternoon”
Availability isn’t generally a problem until harvest time, when some players have other priorities, and most of the squad is based in the village or nearby.
A geographical point of note here in case I get letters from ‘Bereft of Bedale’. Everyone refers to Crakehall but the village is divided, either side of Crakehall Beck, between Great Crakehall and Little Crakehall.
As for the cricket, Crakehall’s undoubted charm and sense of identity comes with its own limitations. They can’t progress above Division 4 of the Nidderdale League due to the size of the ground and the lack of facilities, but that ceiling doesn’t feel particularly low or anything to bother about.
So, Crakehall is unchanged and that’s absolutely fine with me.
I guess you want to read about the match, right? Well, don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
Burton Leonard’s 2nd XI were dismissed for 39 in 19.4 overs; a combination of sharp reflexes, plenty of batters hearing the dreaded death rattle behind them as stumps were rearranged and even a run-out.
John Love, a bearded metronome, was relentless from the Crakehall Hall End en route to 4-15. His partner-in-wickets was Dean Norman, with 5-16, tattooed and bespectacled but no less impressive.
At 36-4, the visitors lost another three wickets without advancing the score. It ended up being one of those days for Burton Leonard, and we’ve all had them.
Pleasingly, the clarion call for Yorkshire puds then came. No rush to get proceedings over and done with. Instead, a very pleasant afternoon in these parts stretched out through the ritual of stopping for a brew and a feed.
Every Crakehall player brings enough for two and the system works well. Those mini Yorkshire puddings with slices of roast beef and a paddling pool of gravy were within reach. Due to a sense of politeness and having eaten recently, I did not grab a handful and scarper.
Instead, the interlude allowed time to examine the square and today’s wicket. I frequently report that ‘the ground is in fine shape’. Now, I don’t know my grass from my elbow. But what I generally mean is that it’s had a decent haircut.
The Crakehall Oval falls under the custody of Bob Shepherd and, whether through mower or nail scissors, kudos to him.
“Lifetime of tinkering”
On my circuits of the outfield, there were a couple of rollers by the pavilion. At some point, a creeping fascination with these has developed. I’ve yet to see a GP about it but figure, if it gets too serious, I can book an appointment.
It is the care with which machinery dating back decades has been lovingly restored, patched together or adapted for the purpose of squashing the demons from a strip of grass.
Cricket rollers, even in decent condition, still look a bit knackered. They speak to a past era; resuscitated as with one of those 1980s episodes of The A-Team. You know the ones.
Cigar-chewing Hal and his mates would disappear into a giant barn with a toothpick, a pack of Fruit Pastilles and a determined look. They’d come out having somehow built an armoured tank.
Anyhow, cricket rollers are mechanical workhorses, often painted a green and red livery; their custom paint job hides a lifetime of tinkering, and perhaps swearing, under the hood.
Crakehall had their own roller-gedon when a family of birds was believed to have nested underneath and somehow a spark on dry wood ignited. A flickering flame became a considerable blaze and the fire brigade came out.
The roller was wrecked, but nothing that some imagination, fundraising and a £500 engine off eBay couldn’t fix.
Back in the middle after the Yorkshire puds, Crakehall’s reply began ominously. At 1-1 and then suddenly 8-3, there were doubtless a few flutters before calm heads Dean Norman, with 12 not out, and Andy Nelson, with 18 not out, conjured up the seven-wicket win.
“Genial conversations”
We were finished by 4pm but Burton Leonard had struck a few blows with the ball, notably Lenni Greveson with 3-24. Another 50 runs might have made things interesting.
This is a place you must come to. I know, I know. My one-man mission is to get every reader to sample as many of the joys of club cricket as I have over nearly 20 years in Yorkshire.
We were lucky with the weather for sure but Crakehall had charmed my wife and me. Even in what turned out to be similar to a T20 match in length, there were genial conversations and acorns of history scattered into stories that all helped get a sense of the place.
So, a few gems to leave you all with. Their end-of-season awards include the full-size duck bat, gifted by Tommy Rhodes, with a hole the size of a cricket ball in the middle and winners listed.
They also have the Toilet Seat Award – yes, an actual toilet seat with a shiny plaque and winners engraved on it – for comical or outrageous moments. Getting Bedale Fire Brigade out to douse a roller that had erupted into flames won the accolade in the past.
The cricket club will be 175 not out in 2025. Some opponents approve of the quirkiness at Crakehall; others arrive, take one look at the minuscule boundaries and blaze away to their peril.
Proper cricket? Absolutely. There is a magic to Crakehall just as it is.
Extract taken from ‘Brews on the Boundary: Travels to Yorkshire’s Cricket Clubs’ by John Fuller, available here
Top image: John Fuller
