Clowes Cricket Club + Farsley (again) & Cambridge Road Cricket clubs

From Yorkshire Evening Post

It was Freda Cooke of Shadwell Walk in Moortown who came across a snap on the back of which someone had written Clowes Cricket Club.

Freda's father Wilfred Hall is the one in the middle wearing the cap but what she wanted to know was if anyone recognised family members and what happened to the Clowes Cricket Club?

When the sporting Dews family opened that edition of Yorkshire Diary they could hardly believe their eyes. Two of the team members were Dews. The chap second from the left on the back row was Albert Dews, grandfather to the YEP's award-winning football writer, Paul.

And the chap with the cap on the bottom right is Paul's great grandfather, Joe Dews.

It was J Rowland Dews – Paul's uncle – of Kellett Mount in west Leeds who made contact after seeing the story about Clowes Cricket Club.

"With one exception all the men shown are known to me," said Rowland. "I first played for the club in 1933. On the back row left to right are Reg Holmes, Albert Dews (my brother), Wilfred Craven and Will Naylor. In the middle are Arthur Lodge but I can't remember what they call the lad next to him. Then comes Wilfred Hall, Walter Whitaker and Charles Siddle. Front left is Harry Handley and next to him Joe Dews, my father.

"Joe did play but on this photograph he was umpiring."

With such a long association with Clowes Cricket Club you'd expect J Rowland to know a bit about its history, and you'd not be wrong.

"About 40 years ago Clowes Methodist Cricket Club was renamed Cambridge Road Methodist Cricket Club and then they dropped the 'road' and became Cambridge Methodist Cricket Club. It is still functioning.

"I still act as scorer for the club whose ground nowadays is at the Clariant Works in Calverley Lane, Horsforth, although my playing days finished in the early 80s."

I'll not let you know J Rowland's age but he must have played most of his working life! Oh, and our soccer writer and his father, Mick, both played for Clowes Methodist Cricket Club. See what I mean about the sporting Dews family?

Yorkshire Diary

John Thorpe MBE

Clariant ground on Calverley Lane now used by Farsley