With no North-East cricket this summer and little hope of the sport resuming, The Northern Echo has been delving into our extensive and historic sporting archives to bring you an innings of pictures over weekend.
We will have memorable photos from back in the day, from various leagues, divisions and clubs across the North-East.
Over the last couple of weeks – and again today – we look back on some old photos from the Durham leagues.
A lot of the old photos from our library are, unfortunately, without captions and details.
But a number of readers have been in touch to add details and information.
Alan Stewart, secretary and club historian at Crook Town, has added his memories to last Saturday’s spread.
He wrote: “I can tell you that the photo of Roy Coates greeting Jamshed Hussain as professional was in 1982. Jamshed, who we all called Jimmy, was a late replacement as pro.
“We had had two highly successful seasons with Suru Nayak as pro and we had re-signed him for 1982, but he was picked in the Indian Test squad to tour England that summer where he played in two of the Test matches.
“The photo of David Hutchinson would be sometime in the 1980's. David, one of my closest lifelong friends, had a long career beginning in 1972 as a junior aged 13 until 2008. In 1986 he created a club record scoring five second team centuries in the season.
“Ian Williams, pictured playing for North Bitchburn, first played junior cricket at Crook and returned in 1988 where he played until 2002 and is the club's all-time record run scorer with 12,855 runs.
“The Tudhoe junior photo is from about 1984/85. They won the North section every year from 1981-1986 and a few of them had decent careers. Stephen Ball also played for Philadelphia and Crook before becoming an excellent local pro at a few clubs including Murton, Shildon and Sacriston before returning to Crook as pro in 2004 and 2005 before finishing off his career at Brandon.
“Stephen was unlucky to be just a bit too old when Durham became first class as he was good enough to have played at that level. He did play second XI and Minor Counties cricket for Durham.
“Stephen Vaulks and Robert Chismon also had spells at Crook and Robert was still playing at Mainsforth in the last year or so and also played for Bishop Auckland and Darlington RA.
“Garry Cummings was pro at Etherley and also played at Bishop Auckland, Willington and Mainsforth. It looks like that photo was taken at Bishop Auckland.’’
And thanks to Darren Wingfield for letting us know that the photo of Babar Basharat was taken at Lanchester Cricket Club, when he played there in 1983, 84 and 85 as the overseas professional, playing in the North West Durham and County League scoring five hundreds.
If you have memories from today’s photos then get in touch and email echosport@nne.co.uk
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