Cricket: Huddersfield Cricket legend Peter Dibb retires

Oct 22 2009 By David Lockwood

ONE of the biggest legends in Drakes Huddersfield League cricket history has decided to retire.

Peter Dibb, who has just celebrated his 76th birthday, has finally decided to call time on a League career spanning an incredible 62 seasons.

It started with a game for Honley at Primrose Hill back in 1948 and concluded with a Second XI game last season for Kirkheaton at Slaithwaite.

It is a remarkable record for a man who has played for nine different clubs, five of them as a professional.

Brought up in Honley, Dibb played for his village club for a total of 20 seasons in different spells, the last season or two as a member of the second team, while the other long association he had was with Paddock, where he played for 17 seasons (but only one of them as professional).

On top of that he enjoyed eight seasons at Marsh Lane with Shepley, including three seasons as pro in 1972, 73 and 74, three at Lascelles Hall, three as Slaithwaite’s pro in 1963, 64 and 65, two with Marsden as their pro in 1970 and 71 and one as professional at Dalton in 1962 – and was a valued member of the Huddersfield League side on many occasions, playing in the Rothmans and later Steiner Cup competitions.

Remarkably, Dibb won the Huddersfield League’s batting prize as far back as 1953 while with Honley and, amazingly 30 years later, he again won one of the league’s top awards when he scooped the bowling prize with Paddock.

That in itself is a feat achieved by only three other players in the League’s history.

Almondbury’s Brian Rudkin completed both, one in 1973 (batting) and the other the following year; John Walters of Lascelles Hall in 1975 (bowling) and 1976 (batting), while Brandon Nash won both prizes in 2002 while with Delph & Dobcross.

Asked about the secrets of his longevity in the game, Dibb modestly admits: "I’ve been very fortunate and not really suffered any bad injuries through playing cricket.

"I did get a nasty injury playing football as a young man, and in 1975 I tore some knee ligaments while playing hockey, but those aside I’ve managed to stay pretty fit and healthy."

And that has to be an under-statement for a man who has played cricket up to the age of 75, hockey until he was 61 and, as a member of Longwood Harriers Athletics Club (since 1980), is still performing with distinction at Veterans’ meets.

Indeed, it’s only a few weeks ago that he competed at Heckmondwike in the Northern Veterans’ Championships, when he ran the 100metres, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m!

It was in his formative years at Ackworth boarding school in Pontefract that Dibb developed his love of sport, particularly cricket and hockey (he played for Huddersfield from 1950 when they played at Honley, and in the 1960s had half-a-dozen seasons at the ICI) and where he became acquainted with the curiously named Penguins cricket club for whom he first played in 1951.

"The Penguins were originally formed in 1924 by a group of doctors from Leeds Infirmary, and it has just developed over the years from there," he explained.

"They always came to Ackworth every year to play a fixture against a Masters XI, which was usually comprised of two or three masters and the rest of the boys from the First XI.

"A lot of the games are played around the Wakefield/Dewsbury area, and we play our home games at Silcoates during the school holidays.

"Huddersfield-born Yorkshire county players like Ken Taylor and Frank Greenwood used to turn out for them occasionally, while Maurice Leyland was another county star who played for the Penguins in 1946. And I’m hoping to carry on playing for them now and again, in fact it was in August this year that I managed to achieve only my second hat trick, having got my other against Lockwood a long time ago."