Penguins Cricket Club

Not to be confused with the club in Penguin, Tasmania

Penguins get a mention on the (Excellent) Nomad Cricket club website. It could be any old nomadic Penguin, of course.

An article on Examiner live would seem to make it the same club, with a mention of Maurice Leyland

Huddersfield Cricket legend Peter Dibb retires

By
Examiner Live
08:26, 22 OCT 2009

ONE of the biggest legends in Drakes Huddersfield League cricket history has decided to retire.
Peter Dibb, who has just celebrated his 76th birthday, has finally decided to call time on a League career spanning an incredible 62 seasons.
It started with a game for Honley at Primrose Hill back in 1948 and concluded with a Second XI game last season for Kirkheaton at Slaithwaite.
It is a remarkable record for a man who has played for nine different clubs, five of them as a professional.
Brought up in Honley, Dibb played for his village club for a total of 20 seasons in different spells, the last season or two as a member of the second team, while the other long association he had was with Paddock, where he played for 17 seasons (but only one of them as professional).
On top of that he enjoyed eight seasons at Marsh Lane with Shepley, including three seasons as pro in 1972, 73 and 74, three at Lascelles Hall, three as Slaithwaite’s pro in 1963, 64 and 65, two with Marsden as their pro in 1970 and 71 and one as professional at Dalton in 1962 – and was a valued member of the Huddersfield League side on many occasions, playing in the Rothmans and later Steiner Cup competitions.
Remarkably, Dibb won the Huddersfield League’s batting prize as far back as 1953 while with Honley and, amazingly 30 years later, he again won one of the league’s top awards when he scooped the bowling prize with Paddock.
That in itself is a feat achieved by only three other players in the League’s history.
Almondbury’s Brian Rudkin completed both, one in 1973 (batting) and the other the following year; John Walters of Lascelles Hall in 1975 (bowling) and 1976 (batting), while Brandon Nash won both prizes in 2002 while with Delph & Dobcross.
Asked about the secrets of his longevity in the game, Dibb modestly admits: "I’ve been very fortunate and not really suffered any bad injuries through playing cricket.
"I did get a nasty injury playing football as a young man, and in 1975 I tore some knee ligaments while playing hockey, but those aside I’ve managed to stay pretty fit and healthy."
And that has to be an under-statement for a man who has played cricket up to the age of 75, hockey until he was 61 and, as a member of Longwood Harriers Athletics Club (since 1980), is still performing with distinction at Veterans’ meets.
Indeed, it’s only a few weeks ago that he competed at Heckmondwike in the Northern Veterans’ Championships, when he ran the 100metres, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m!

It was in his formative years at Ackworth boarding school in Pontefract that Dibb developed his love of sport, particularly cricket and hockey (he played for Huddersfield from 1950 when they played at Honley, and in the 1960's had half-a-dozen seasons at the ICI) and where he became acquainted with the curiously named Penguins cricket club for whom he first played in 1951.

"The Penguins were originally formed in 1924 by a group of doctors from Leeds Infirmary, and it has just developed over the years from there," he explained. They always came to Ackworth every year to play a fixture against a Masters XI, which was usually comprised of two or three masters and the rest of the boys from the First XI. A lot of the games are played around the Wakefield/Dewsbury area, and we play our home games at Silcoates during the school holidays. Huddersfield-born Yorkshire county players like Ken Taylor and Frank Greenwood used to turn out for them occasionally, while Maurice Leyland was another county star who played for the Penguins in 1946. And I’m hoping to carry on playing for them now and again, in fact it was in August this year that I managed to achieve only my second hat trick, having got my other against Lockwood a long time ago."

Dibb’s first junior match for Honley was in 1947 when he played against Holmfirth, for whom Bob Platt (ex-Yorkshire and now Drakes League president) opened the bowling, while his younger brother Stuart opened the batting with Lewis Pickles, who later opened the batting for Somerset. He was to stay at Honley until the completion of the 1961 season, when he made the first of several moves throughout his long career.
"The reason I moved to Dalton as their professional in 1962 was because I was mainly considered to be an opening batsman and didn’t get the opportunity to bowl as much as I would have liked to have done," he explained.
"However, I did get plenty of bowling opportunities from 1982 onwards, which outlasted my batting years. My batting was effectively finished by 1975 when I quickly moved down the order, and much of the last 30 years was spent batting at No10 and 11.
"That said, sometimes I think there can be more pressure on the No11 than there is on the opener.
"In particular I remember playing for Shepley in a Sykes Cup semi-final against Meltham in 1978, when I joined Colin Shaw in the middle as last man, needing 13 to win and go through to the final – which we managed!"
In fact, Dibb played in four Sykes Cup finals, winning two of them with Lascelles Hall in 1961 against Armitage Bridge, and again in 1966 against Kirkburton.
He did suffer two defeats, the first with Honley in 1952 when they lost to Huddersfield, having earlier been in the side who smashed what is the all-time record score of 557 against Broad Oak in the days when matches were timeless, and he was again on the losing side (against Broad Oak) while playing with Shepley in 1978.
A chartered accountant, Dibb worked in Leeds for many years, while living in Newsome, and in 1983 he returned his best-ever figures while playing for Paddock against Almondbury, when he bowled 11.5 overs, 10 of which were maidens and took six wickets for one run!
A few years ago he moved briefly to Clitheroe to be nearer his daughter, but still came back to Huddersfield every weekend to play cricket.
Not surprisingly he began to find the travelling a bit of a bind, plus he missed many of his old friends, so he moved back to Newsome again.
When he began playing cricket back in the late 1940's, matches lasted two hours 20 mins and Cup-ties were timeless, and he has both watched, and adapted to many changes down the years.
"I think one of the big differences today is the vast improvement in the quality of the wickets. They didn’t get the proper preparation they receive now. Any batsman scoring 500 runs could be considered to have had a very good season, while it was commonplace to see bowlers with single-figure averages.
"But fortunately pitches have been improving over the years.
"At Honley, John Sanderson was one of the people who helped start the improvement, as he saw what people were doing with their wickets when on tour down south. And that work was then carried on by the current Honley groundsman Peter Green, who does a terrific job.
"I also don’t remember there being so much noise on the field years ago, with people appealing all the time and inane remarks which are aimed at unsettling the batsmen, who in turn used to ‘walk’ more than is seen nowadays. Nor do I remember the umpires getting the trouble they seem to encounter now."
Batting:

First XI: 842 innings, 302 not outs, highest score 84no, 12,759 runs; average 23.63.

Second XI: 88 ins, 59 no, 76 hs, 757 runs, ave 26.10.

Bowling: First XI: 13,228 overs, 3,494 maidens, 33,656 runs, 2,140 wickets, average 15.73. Second XI: 1,955 ov, 670 mdns, 4,569 rns, 282 wkts, ave 16.20.

He is one of only three players to have achieved a remarkable double by scoring over 10,000 runs in the Huddersfield League and claiming over 1,000 wickets – the other two being John Shaw and John Sanderson.
Combining his all-time statistics together, which, as well as playing both in the League and for the League includes games for the Penguins and for Yorkshire’ Over 50s (for whom he has played on numerous occasions), Dibb’s tally tops 17,000 runs and 3,000 wickets.
"I’ve always been enthusiastic and really enjoyed my sport and the way of life, and I will continue to enjoy watching cricket, both at Yorkshire and Honley, and look forward to carrying on meeting old friends."