The sun sets on another season at Pateley Bridge. The club is nicknamed the Badgers as “pateley” is an old Yorkshire word for badger.
The ground today is not too curious but it is here as my current home ground. As an offcumbant I get a discount on being a local by playing for the team. The ground is actually in the parish of Bewerley and so Pateley play all their home games away!
The pictures show the first team losing at home again. I finished with a duck -caught at mid off.
Until 1987 the ground was home to a massive tree in the opposite corner to the pavillion. It fell down in the great storm. If the ball hit the tree it was a four. Today that corner of the ground is affectionately called “critic’s corner” (see picture) where comments such as “Not as good as in my day” are regularly muttered.
The show ground holds the Nidderdale Show - the last Dales show of the season and one of the attractions is the Nidderdale League against the Craven League show match. Quite how the Show Society gets away with the insurance for this event beats me – the boundaries are not big and I think the show goers are often in danger from stray balls. The club regularly ends up paying £60 to the owners of Nidderdale Motors (the local Vauxhall dealer whose property is next door) to repair the roof due to all the sixes against the Pateley bowling.
