The Cricket History of Calderdale and Kirklees

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EMLEY CLARENCE CC

Upper Lane, Emley, Huddersfield HD8 9RH   View Map

Altitude: 199 Metres/653 Feet

Hudds Lge   Hudds Junior League

Volunteer Contacts:

Grahame Dickens, John Moors & Philip Bunn

Club Website

 
  Club Image
 

Founded: c.1876
Nickname: 'Clarence'
Nearest Landmark: Emley Cross
Nearest Railway Station: Shepley
By Bus: 232/233 from Huddersfield Bus Station
Nearest Other Club: Flockton
Nearest Pub: The Wentworth

Club

Timeline (40kb PDF)

Early Years (3.0mb PDF)
Later Years (1.8mb PDF)
Club History in Express & Chronicle Newspapers (121kb PDF)

History of Club and Ground - Extract from Pennine Pitch

Concise History of Club


1876-1984 Various Fixture Cards (5.1mb PDF)

2000 Ground-Sharing (web link)

2005 Sykes Cup (web link)
2005 Heritage Exhibition Launch Event (234kb PDF)

2008 Preview by Chris Knowles (18kb PDF)

2nd XI by Chris Knowles (20kb PDF)

Changing Times by Chris Knowles (56kb PDF)

Club Website by Chris Knowles (40kb PDF)

Clubmark by Chris Knowles (32kb PDF)

Overseas Players by Chris Knowles (15kb PDF)

Ground-Sharing & Name-Changing by Chris Knowles (22kb PDF)

Junior Section by Chris Knowles (16kb PDF)

'Local' Cricket by Chris Knowles (35kb PDF)

Sponsorship & Funding by Chris Knowles (42kb PDF)

LEAGUES: Huddersfield Central League, Huddersfield League (web link)

People

Who's Who (643kb PDF)

Memorials, Plaques & Dedications (218kb PDF)

Will Appleyard   Profile by Chris Knowles (15kb PDF)

Grahame Dickens   Profile by Chris Knowles (17kb PDF)

Simon Lewis   Profile by Chris Knowles (38kb PDF)

John Moors   Profile by Chris Knowles (27kb PDF)

Mick Onions   Profile by Chris Knowles (41kb PDF)

Craig Stratford   Profile by Chris Knowles (16kb PDF)

Jeanette Stratford   Profile by Chris Knowles (16kb PDF)

Simon Sykes   Profile by Chris Knowles (28kb PDF)

Sue Tedder   Profile by Chris Knowles (50kb PDF)

Matthew Wood   Yorkshire CCC   Huddersfield League   Cricinfo   2002   2007   Profile

Team Photos

1890s (76kb PDF)

1900s (67kb PDF)

1930s (134kb PDF)

1960s (92kb PDF)

1970s (146kb PDF)

1980s (704kb PDF)

Undated (203kb PDF)

Ground

Story of Upper Lane (586kb PDF)

2007 Emley v Hall Bower (1.6mb PDF)

3D Map & Aerial Photograph (250kb PDF)

Upper Lane - Heritage Graphic (42kb PDF)
Line Drawing by Sue Brant

Action (348kb PDF)

Club Buildings (426kb PDF)

Environs (680kb PDF)

Entrance

Football/Rugby Ground

General Views (569kb PDF)

Kitchen

On the Boundary (575kb PDF)

Pavilion (422kb PDF)

Players (330kb PDF)

Scorebox

Signage

Spectators

Wicket & Square (232kb PDF)

Oral History - Mick Onions

Changing Times (audio)
Club Women (audio)
Fundraising (audio)
Main Rivals (audio)
Major Characters (audio)

Local Context

Profile of Emley by Lindsay Pollick (138kb PDF)

Emley Village by Chris Knowles (15kb PDF)

Emley Mast by Chris Knowles (54kb PDF)

Wikipedia (web link)

Emley Brass Band (web link)

AFC Emley (web link)

Emley Show (web link)

GENUKI 1820s (web link)

Emley Mast 1 (web link)

Emley Mast 2 (web link)

Emley Moor (web link)

Met Office (web link)

Alan Walker (web link)

Former Cricket Clubs in Local Area (web link)

Emley Noncoms (web link)

Further Reading

Huddersfield Examiner

 

With grateful thanks to Philip Bunn, Grahame Dickens, John Moors and Mick Onions (ECC) and Chris Knowles (University of Huddersfield).

If you have any information about this club or any others in this area that could be of use please feel free to contact us via p.j.davies@hud.ac.uk.

Note:
You will need the Adobe Acrobat Plug-in to view these files.
   


Select Images to View Below:

The Ground
  Archive Images

 

Greatest Moment

Winning the Central League 'Double' in 2000.

Local Hero

Matthew Wood, Yorkshire batsman, who learnt his cricket at Emley.

Bizarre Fact

In the late 19th Century Emley CC was known as 'Elmley CC'.

Isolated and Charming

Emley is an archetypal West Yorkshire village: high, isolated, but also attractive and charming. It is situated six miles south-east of Huddersfield, close to Flockton, Clayton West, Skelmanthorpe, Shelley and Kirkburton - so this is very much cricket country. It also has a long history. As Rev. Robert Pym wrote: 'Emley has been an old-fashioned place, For it was built in ancient days.'


The place is famous for one landmark: Emley Moor Television Mast. A local poem talks about the 'shadow of the mast', and this is ever-present. The telecommunications facility - which beams signals into over five million homes - is visible from most vantage points in Kirklees.

It is ultra-tall (900 feet, with a 180-foot aerial on top) and ultra-thin, but even so it has a certain grace and poise (unlike its predecessor, which collapsed in 1969). It is built on the 750-foot contour so the top is roughly 1,834 feet above sea level, which makes it Europe's tallest free-standing structure. The poem quoted above also describes the Mast as 'a welcoming beacon'.


Emley Mast is also a symbol. When the village's all-conquering football team reached the latter stages of the FA Cup in the mid-1990s, and earned a mouth-watering away tie with West Ham United, all those who went down to London to support the team seemed to carry with them a portable model of the Mast.

Tents and Non-Coms

Upper Lane is not far away from St. Michael's church (whose tower is visible from the ground), the post office, the pub and Market Cross, the starting point for the 'Boundary Walk', a longstanding Emley tradition.

 

In the early years, the cricket club and the football club both played in the same field in Upper Lane (as they would also do later on). But the soccer players moved to a ground near Chapel House farm - leaving the cricketers in sole possession - and went on to play at several other fields before ending up at the Welfare Ground.

In 1906 the local coal merchant, George Stringer Snr. (an ex-Emley cricketer himself), opened a new pavilion at Upper Lane. This was good news for the cricket club, who up to this point had had to rely on a simple wooden hut known as 'The Tent'. We are told that in 1909 the Emley soccer XI contained 10 miners from the Park Mill and Emley Moor collieries, so it would not be surprising if the cricket club also attracted its share of miners.

At the start of the twentieth century, there is also evidence of another cricket club in Emley - 'The Noncoms', a group of chapel-goers who were members of the Nonconformist League.

They played their home games at a laid ground at the bottom of Kirk Hills (the Tyburn Lane side) in a field farmed by Albert Parker. A number of local men starred for this outfit, including Henry and Herbert Hardcastle, Thomas and Earnest Mathewman, Joe Parker, Hugh and Ashley Pattison, and Harry Stafford.


By the 1950s Emley CC was well established as a key village organisation. So much so that during the Coronation celebrations of 1953 the club was one of three local sports bodies asked to man a special float that travelled round the village.

Disclaimer - Designed and programmed by Lee Booth.

 
Heritage Lottry Fund University of Huddersfield