Memories
Following yesterday's posting about the 77 years history of the Huddersfield Champion-of-Champions title, Bill Blackburn has added his own memories of Tony Young who featured in Dave Parkin's article.
Bill recalls ....
Very interesting story about Tony Young and his third success in winning the CofC. But did you know that he and another regular winner of competitions, Brian Starkey, had to alter their delivery stance after both suffered near fatal road accidents.
Tony was travelling in his car along the road behind the ICI complex which runs from Colnebridge to Dalton. Halfway along that road is a sharp bend and as Tony approached a sharp bend in the road two cars, side by side were racing and smashed into his car, his left leg was trapped under the dashboard.
After he recovered and started bowling again, when delivering, his left leg went forward but was almost straight, he was unable to bend it properly.
Brian had an even luckier escape. After bowling and playing dominos at the Griffin one Sunday he was on his way home on his scooter. He was at the traffic lights by the old sports centre waiting to travel down Leeds Road when a vehicle came down Northumberland Street and instead of going round the lights went on the wrong side and trapped Brian between his car and the railings.
Luckily a male nurse was in a car behind Brian and rang for an ambulance and he himself managed to get Brian to safety and also managed to remove his helmet, it had been knocked back and the strap was choking him.
Later that week I went to visit him in hospital, his leg was in plaster and suspended on a wire. After recovering he had a permanent limp.