Sheffield Evening Telegraph – Saturday 24 August 1907
District Cricket Jottings.
Hickleton or Mitchell’s?
Swinton’s defeat on Saturday that the hands ot South Kirkby killed any remaining chance the former club possessed of attaining the Mexborough League championship. It was another case of failure at the crucial moment of the campaign, and the most Swinton can hope for now is to head their, near neighbour rivals tor third position in the final placing.
Which means that the honours of the league season must again go to past or present champion —Hickleton Main or Mitchell Main—who are fighting a fine finish in the closing burst for home.
On Saturday, Hickleton comfortably accounted for Hoyland Silkstone, but Mitchells dropped a most valuable point in only managing to draw with Rotherham, who, for once in a way, copied the stray example of their seniors and went in for some tall scoring.
These results placed Hickleton two points of Mitchells, who. however, by defeating Rawmarsh and Monday climbed level at “29 points all, a position of equality, quite in keeping with the two best teams of the League.
But Hickleton, although they have the harder task in the few remaining matches, can view all the glorious uncertainties associated with the summer with the greater equanimity because of there match in hand compared with their great competitors. This, ’tis true, has to be turned to credit account, before it can be utilised as advantage, but seeing that Hickleton have run four-fifths of season without being beaten. Alban Turner and la colleagues have abundant justification in their tope of successfully responding to the final calk. The records the two clubs are curiously similar. Both have won nine matches and drawn 11, Mitchells solitary defeat being the instance Mexborough which seems to suggest, looking at the present, aspect of affairs, that the Town players, although they cannot win the championship themselves, will, by their treatment of Mitchells. have had a big say in the destination of the honours. In favouring Hickleton’s chances, it may be taken into consideration that the club started the current campaign with and annoying sequence of eight successive draws, in all of which Hickleton had the game in their grip. With their first victory gained Hickleton have never looked back since, winning 11 out of their last dozen matches—which convincing enough even to impress the most ardent follower of Mitchell Main.
The latter are not yet disposed to hand over the Whitworth Cup without struggle, for a league championship is never lost until it is won, and even yet there is distinct possibility of a “turn-up.”
This will decide
The following are the remaining matches of the championship chasers, and readers can form their own opinion as to which club is most likely to come out on top.
Hickleton (29 points for 20 matches) to play Mexborough. South Kirkby, Monk Bretton, and Hoyland Silkstone.
Mitchell Main (29 points for 21 matchee) to play Wath, Rotherham, and Monk Bretton.
Although the other clubs are quite out of the running, interest in their matches is by no means killed. You see, there are so many side issues, including local rivalry, and the contest for positions, that the games are bound to be attractive.
Mexborough have surprised their own supporters by the quality of their play which has rightly earned them the reputation being one of the heaviest scoring teams in the League. Had an extra good class Bowler been available, Hickleton and Mitchells would now have added a third party to their hopes add fears. Mexborough’s victory over Monk Bretton was gained by a margin of over 80 runs, and thus in the absence of Tommy Hakin, who has returned to Grimsby in preparation for the football season.
The performance of the Town team was the most satisfactory, because it was largely brought about with the help of reserve players, which you will agree, it is a healthy sign for the future of the club. T. Field, who has figured with the Reserves, was the principal agent in the undoing the “Monks.” He not only made top score of the match (48), but took four wickets, clean bowling the first three Monk Bretton batsmen, and serving another victim in the same abrupt “get out” way. ln the face of such good display of all round cricket, the pity of it is that Mexborough did not utilise Field’s services earlier in the season. He was formerly associated with Conisborough, before the disappearance of the Castle team from the League, but has for three or four years been prominently identified with Mexborough sport. He now holds the office of financial secretary to the Mexborough Town. Football Club.
Denaby downfall
Denaby will not be sorry to Denaby “put up the shutters “ at the end of the mouth. Frankly, the club has had a sorry sort of season, and degeneracy has set into such an extent that the players seem to have lost confidence in themselves. For a club that won the League Championship in 1901, and has several limes since come very near to regaining, the honours, the deterioration passes comprehension. It is not is if there was a dearth of players. On paper Denaby started the season with prospects undeniably rosy. Yet practical work in the field has revealed a gradual process falling off, until but the ‘pieces” of the former complete “whole” remain.
Still clothed in flannels, the Denaby players are but “shadow of the substance,” and even the resources of a powerful colliery club to help them finds no satisfactory return of match results. The Brothers Robinson and Mury, with the Smiths, Narroway, Scott, of last year’s team, still remain, but the team has developed partiality for collapsing, for the present lowly position of the club in the League table. The climax came on Saturday, when Rawmarsh dismissed the side for a beggarly 19 runs, which probably constitutes an unenviable record for a club more familiar with big thing in local cricket. At times Denaby have risen to their old-time glory, but it has merely been “a flash in the pan,” and an occasional big victory has been assuredly followed by as equally big slump. The one bright spot the season’s rising, as far as Denaby concerned, was their defeat of Mexborough, though their victory over Kirkby was hardly less meritorious.
Tie League placings up to date are follows: