ALL OUR YESTERDAYS 30 Years ago February 1991
As we begin the build-up to the new season we take a series of memories from All Our Yesterdays as we step back in time. This 4-part series looks at the build-up to the 1991 summer season with articles and photos reproduced with the kind permission of the Huddersfield Examiner.
This first piece looks back 30 years ago to February 1991 when the Griffin was snowed off for the first time in its history; when it was announced that Cleckheaton Sports was to host a national final later in the year; the abandoned green at Hemplow may be restored and the Indoor Triples Final at the Sports Centre was held.
The deep drifting snow beat even the Griffin Inn Bowling club one February weekend. The Huddersfield Winter Club, who once used a JCB to clear tons of snow off their green so that the Stones Cup Final could go ahead, conceded defeat for the first time in their 24-year-old history when postponing the final of their Jacko's Memorial Trophy.
Clecheaton Sports was selected for the Henselite British Crown Green Merit Final to be staged in August as a 4-year programme was announced. That programme would see the competition climax in four different counties after the 1991 competition in Cleckheaton would be followed by the Vickers Sports Club (Barrow-in-Furness), Lostock Social Club (Northwich), Rolls Royce Club (Derby) and then in 1995 at Mitchell & Butlers in Birmingham.
Hopes were high for Marsden bowlers that they might get their Hemplow bowling green back in action if sufficient people can be found to fill the official positions for the new club. The bowling green slithered into delapidation during the war years but now the Marsden Enhancement Committee were making moves to get it restored at a cost of £6,000. The organisation who have been responsible for planting trees at Marsden Golf Club now also want to undertake some landscaping at the adjacent Marsden Cricket Club have been encouraged by the support they have received in the village.
However there were concerns that the scheme would never see the light of day as there had been little interest from people coming forward to form a new bowling committee which is required to run the club. Without that commitment the Enhancement Committee are reluctant to go ahead. A public meeting was being called and would be held at Marsden Conservative Club and without good support the scheme would be shelved.
It may be February but bowling is still taking part indoors at the Huddersfield Sports Centre as the Huddersfield Indoor Bowls Club's Curtis Triples Trophy was held. The photograph below shows Mary Archer holding the trophy which was won by Hilda Baines, Cliff Harris and Iris Nuttall (on the right) beating (on the left) Betty Moxon, Bernard Dyson and Margaret Curtis.
COMING NEXT: Part 2: All the news from March 1991