TRIUMPHANT Honley celebrated their fifth Drakes Huddersfield Cricket League Championship in six seasons – and set a new League record into the bargain.
A total of 22 wins from their 26 games (of which two were rained off) brought skipper Rob Moore’s side a magnificent total of 125 League points, to wipe off the previous best of 120 points, set by their Holme Valley neighbours Scholes, 12 months earlier.
Two of the clubs new signings for 2010 were particularly prominent in taking the Byrom Shield back to Honley.
Tom Craddock won the Premiership bowling prize and was the League’s leading wicket-taker, which won him the Jack Gledhill Trophy as the top young player in the League for the second successive year, while Max Joice won the League’s top batting award after a brilliant season brought him more than 1,110 runs.
However, it was one of the club’s more established players who did the damage on the last day of the season, when pace bowler Harlon Haye ripped the Holmfirth innings apart with the best return of anyone in the League all season (9-60) before Joice finished the season as he started with an unbeaten 47, backed up by Simon Kelly (35) to secure victory and with it, the title.
Joice’s former team Skelmanthorpe had been celebrating earlier in the season when they lifted the Romida Sykes Cup (played at Honley) when Qaiser Rashid and Wasim Jaffer both notched centuries in the eight-wicket win over Delph & Dobcross.
Rashid won the man-of-the-match award for his all-round contribution, but it was Jaffer who went on to etch his name in the League record books when he became the first batsmen ever to top 2,000 runs in a season.
The former Indian Test opener finished with 2,083 (ave 94.68) to post a record that will probably never be beaten.
Kexborough, who finished as runners-up to Shelley in the Frank Platt Championship left the league at the end of the season instead of taking their earned promotion spot, leaving the Drakes Executive to rule that only one team would be promoted (Shelley) and only one relegated (Holmfirth) giving Barkisland a last-minute reprieve as the team who finished next-to-bottom.
Hall Bower, similarly escaped the drop into the Cedar Court Conference, troubled Micklehurst the only team going down there, to be replaced by champions Paddock and runners-up Emley Clarence.
Externally, the two biggest success of the summer fell to the League’s Under 21 side, who lifted the White Rose Trophy after coach Norman Clee and skipper Craig Fletcher steered their side to victory over the North Yorkshire and South Durham League in the final.
Meanwhile, Scholes, the 2009 League champions, pulled off a magnificent victory over a mighty York side to win the Black Sheep Yorkshire Champions Trophy for the first time in the club’s history.
Mohammed Shahnawaz was the star turn for Scholes as he led them to respectability with a knock of 59, batting at No10, and then rocked the Yorkshire League favourites with a four for 25 return (helped by five victims for stumper Richard Holmes) to deliver a 42-run win for James Noble’s plucky side.
Central League side Cawthorne were elected into the League to replace Kexborough for 2011.
