There will be plenty of ground-hoppers across Yorkshire – lovers of our wonderful game keen to see a good game of cricket on a Saturday afternoon. If you’re one of those, you may consider getting down to Savile Park on August 31 to see Castleford take on Clifton Alliance in a top-of-the-table Yorkshire Premier League North clash.
It is second versus first and could well be a title decider.
Castleford were YPL North champions in 2021, while their visitors in a couple of weeks are chasing their first title at this level.
This has been quite the summer for Clifton Alliance CC, their first team hoisting themselves from a targeted mid-table finish to lead the league by 18 points with 10 available per win and five rounds remaining.
“Myself and Steve Hanson, our director of cricket, sat down at the start of the season,” said captain Liam Green.
“We thought then that it would be York, Cas, Driffield and Woodhouse challenging. Most people across the board would say those four would be favourites.
“We were thinking that if we had a good season we could get up behind them along with the likes of Harrogate and Sheriff Hutton Bridge. If I’m honest, I didn’t expect us to be as high as we are.
“It’s a great feeling, but we’re not over-thinking anything. We’ll just take it game by game.
“From the outside you’d look in at that Cas game and say, ‘It could be the decider’. But we’re not thinking that far ahead. We’re just focusing on the next game and trying to win that.”
For the last three seasons, post-Covid, Green’s side have finished sixth, sixth and fifth in the table, so to be in the position of strength they find themselves in is quite the leap. An extremely impressive one, to say the least.
Picture courtesy of Clifton Alliance CC. Captain Liam Green bowls.
Green continued: “The key for us this year – the difference from previous years – is that consistency.
“We know we’re a good side, but it’s just about performing to the levels we’re capable of on a regular basis. This year, it just seems to have clicked for us.
“We’ve had a great overseas who has come in and performed with the bat, ball and in the field, Bryn Llewellyn. He’s also helping our juniors immensely, on and off the pitch. At training, he’s always down and will spend half an hour with each of them.
“He plays Brisbane first grade competition for Ipswich Hornets, and we’ve known a bit about him through a number of connections we have in Australia.
“I think Bryn is our fourth oldest player at 24, so it shows we have a really young first team at the minute.”
Llewellyn has scored 1,179 runs in 23 matches for Clifton across all competitions this season, including four hundreds which have all come in the league. He has also taken 41 wickets for them.
A couple of Saturdays ago, opening the batting, he scored 100 in a big win at Sessay when Clifton posted 303-3 against an attack including Yorkshire spinner Dan Moriarty. Llewellyn’s team-mate Ed Wade had quite the day in a 123-run success, hitting an unbeaten 104 before taking four wickets in the hosts’ 180 all out.
“Ed (830 runs, 22 wickets) has so much ability, and it’s been great to see his consistency with the bat,” said Green. “He’s also been a great find with the ball as well in that third spinner’s role, and he’s taken some key wickets at key times. He’s 21 or 22, so he should only get better.”
Green and co, who beat Scarborough by five wickets at home chasing 167 on Saturday, have won 16 of their 17 league games so far. But not all have been straightforwards.
We asked Green if there were any games he will look back on at the end of the season – if they win the title – and say to himself, ‘That was a key moment’.
Picture courtesy of Clifton Alliance CC. The club’s Vincent & Partners Alliance Ground.
“Right at the start of the season, the first game, we were struggling massively against Stamford Bridge,” he recalled. “And a lad who has played for us for a couple of years, Xav Lardner, came in at seven, eight or nine and scored 85 off 46 balls.
“We were struggling (90-5), and he whacked it and got us to a defendable total (193 all out).
“We went on and won that game.”
Other names Green referenced as key to their success this season are seamers Sam Grant and Jack Heartshorne, while Yorkshire Academy seamer Matthew Firbank is with them but has had his summer disrupted by injury.
“Sam is some who I regard – and many others would too – as the best seamer in the league,” said the skipper, 28, who himself grew up playing at Acomb before making the move 12 years ago.
“Jack has come in from the seconds and done a brilliant job with the new ball. He’s one of a few lads who we didn’t expect to play first-team this year but has come in, taken his chance and excelled.”
Green’s own contributions as an all-rounder have been limited due to the success of others around him, a positive sign for team success.
Alliance are based within a stone’s throw of the Clifton Park complex, where Yorkshire recently played two matches in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup.
It is another indication of strength of league cricket in Yorkshire that two prominent Yorkshire Premier League North clubs, Alliance and York Cricket Club, are based so close to each other.
“We’re only 200 metres apart,” said Green, who detailed a healthy relationship between the two clubs but a fierce rivalry when they do battle on the field.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Yorkshire Academy seamer Matthew Firbank is a Clifton Alliance player.
“We always enjoy playing York, and it’s a game that doesn’t take much getting up for.
“They’re the team we lost to at our place this season, and it still haunts us a bit. We threw that game away. When we played at their place a couple of weeks ago, we said, ‘We don’t let that happen again – it’s on us to perform’.
“We know they have some exceptional players, but we knew if we played to the level we can, we should have too much for them. On that day, we batted, bowled and fielded remarkably well.
“There is a good healthy relationship between the clubs.
“The two groundsmen, Ben (Harris) at York and Kev (Ambrosen) at our place, get on really well, for example. During the winter we’ve just had, with how wet it was, they’d help each other out.
“That’s what the cricket community’s all about, isn’t it.”
Away from first-team level, the seconds are mid-table in Division One West – the third tier of the structure – while they also run a third team and fourth team.
“The second team have a couple more experienced players, but they still have a good crop of juniors coming through from the ages of 15 or 16,” said Green. “Down to the thirds and fourths, it’s all about pushing the juniors and getting as many young lads in as we can.
“Our fourth team acts as an introduction to senior league cricket for any junior wanting to make that step.”
Just as importantly, they play their part in a thriving women’s section. Their team, Clifton Cobras, is a joint venture between Alliance and York CC.
Picture by John Clifton/SWpix.com. York CC’s Clifton Park home is a stone’s throw away from Clifton Alliance CC.
“That’s been going for two or three years now,” said Green.
“Some of the Northern Diamonds players come and play when they’re available, and that’s a great thing to help develop our other players. Sid Corley, from our place, is one of those involved in running it, and it’s been fantastic.”
So, what a summer it promises to be for Clifton Alliance if things go well over the next six or seven weeks. Of course, they could even end up champions of Yorkshire.
“I think that (YPL play-off final) is at Castleford this year,” added Green.
“Winning that would be the icing on the cake. But, as I say, we’re just taking it one game at a time.”
