|
Sale Cricket Club were founder members of the Manchester & District Cricket Association in 1892, as part of the league centinary celebrations Roger Lee prepared this brief history of the club.
SALE CRICKET CLUB was founded in 1854 at a time when interest in cricket in the area was growing strongly, Little is now recorded of the Club's early years but it is known to have occupied its present Clarendon Road site for at least 100 years. In 1883, such was the increasing popularity of the Club that ground admission was put up to 4d and records for 1899 clearly show that cricket, lawn tennis and hockey were all played at Clarendon Road at that time.
Among the players to watch around the turn of the century was Peter Whitelegg, who once took 5 wickets in an over for Sale; and Mr Jim Cookson, a brilliant all-rounder of his day. A little later the Club stalwarts included Charlie Hartley, C P Woods, F C Wild, L Hewitson and A Greenhalgh. Hartley topped the batting and bowling averages each year from 1909 to 1913 but one of the most consistent of Sale players was Mr E F (later Sir Edwin) Stockton who was top of the bowling averages for 8 years.
The Stockton name figures significantly in Sale's history and in 1919 Albert Stockton, Sir Edwin's brother, became the Club's captain for the first time. The following year Sale became the first winners of the Manchester & District Cricket Association's Stockton Trophy and Sir Edwin presented the eponymous award to his younger brother,
Sale did not win the Trophy again until 1938, the year that Albert Stockton died after many years of service to both Sale and Lancashire C C C. The captain that year was Fred Beattie and both he and Bernie Crisp topped 500 runs in the season, with Alan Chapman only 11 runs short. Sale only lost one game out of 19 that year and their successful bowlers included Herbert Desborough, Harry Mason and Arthur Barlow,
During the War, in the absence of any Association games, the Club hosted a number of charity matches involving several notable county cricketers of the day. Between 1946 and 1951 the Sale batting averages were headed by the high-scoring Bernie Crisp; Club captain over that period was Alan Gilbert who led his side to a third Stockton Trophy win in 1947. Alan served Sale Cricket Club magnificently for more than 30 years, as respected captain, prolific batsman and brilliant wicketkeeper. He was appointed Association President between 1979 and 1981 after many years of Committee work and a trophy bearing his name is still presented annually to the winners of the Third Eleven Championship.
Sale has enjoyed a reasonable amount of success in the Association over the past 40 years or so although its only trophies in this period are an H C Smith Competition win in 1974 and the Arthur Bewick (2nd Division) Trophy in 1980. A number of loyal skippers have served the Club well in this time, including such respected names as Dugdale, Peaker, Hughes, Peet, Colling, Fitton and Roberts, Several individual achievements will long be remembered by those present - Gordon Cooper's 761 runs in 1971 (still a post-war Club record), Martin Welbourne's magnificent 94 not out in the 1974 H C Smith Final, Duncan Smith's 10 wicket haul against Ashton in 1975 and some amazing hard hitting in the late 1970's from Mike Newton (3600 runs in 8 seasons) to help Sale into the Association First Division.
Success has been harder to find over the last decade but Sale's youth coaching has paid off handsomely with some excellent results at junior level and the generation of some fine young senior players. Not least of these is Howard Briggs who became Club captain in 1989 and celebrated with a remarkable 500 run and 50 wicket double in that season!
Sale's longest serving regular playing member is Glyn Roberts who with over 6500 runs and 350 wickets has made a major contribution to Sale's playing fortunes for 25 years, and also provided much valuable off the field service to both Club and Association.
R J M Lee
| 
