‘Cricket Ground!!!!’
Come on, how many of us down the years have been on a long car journey on the motorway and exclaimed with excitement when a cricket ground comes into view?
Well, Outlane Cricket Club are one of those clubs who will be the subject of such giddy yelps.
For they are located right beside the M62 motorway as you head from Manchester to Leeds.
Outlane are a club with a Huddersfield postcode – HD3 3TE to be precise – but who play their cricket in the Halifax Cricket League. The are slap, bang in the middle of both Kirklees and Calderdale. Both of their first and second teams are in their respective third tiers of that structure.
“Our location is a usual topic of conversation,” admitted Neil Waddington, the club’s treasurer.
Picture courtesy of Outlane CC: Secretary Neil Waddington (l) and club chair Andy Stokes alongside a familiar face to all Yorkshire supporters, Ryan Sidebottom.
“We’re obviously very close to the M62.
“That’s because the ’62 went through our old Lindley Moor Ground in the early 1970s because of a compulsory purchase.
“Our current ground was built by filling in an old quarry by the contractors to provide us with a new ground, and that’s why we’re located so close to the motorway.
“It’s a common theme that some umpires won’t hear little edges because of the motorway noise. It’s quite a funny thing.
“But when you’re up there, you kind of forget about the car noise.
“Opposition teams notice it and sometimes say, ‘Oh my god, the car noise’. But we don’t really notice it any more.
Picture courtesy of Outlane CC. Summer fun on the outskirts of the ground, indicating how close they are to the M62.
“Having said that, last season the ’62 was closed on one particular day and it was dead quiet. And we were like, ‘Jeez, this is weird’.
Those outside of cricket would say that Outlane’s Lindley home is a stone’s throw away from the motorway. But cricket lovers may say that it’s just a sweetly struck six away. Not quite, however.
“We’ve had a risk assessment done regarding hitting sixes onto the motorway,” continued Waddington. “And it’s just a bit too far.
“There’s the end of the ground, a road, a few trees and then motorway. You’d have to go some to reach.
“We went limited on insurance for that reason. A bit of a just in case.
“There’s been a few times when batters have thought they might have done it, including myself. But not quite.”
Picture courtesy of Outlane CC. The club’s ground in Lindley, Huddersfield. Despite their location, they play in the Halifax Cricket League.
Waddington continued: “On one side, you have the motorway. But looking the other way, I reckon we’ve got one of the best views in Yorkshire, overlooking the Keighley wind farm and Halifax and all that. It’s just beautiful.”
Waddington talks with a strong Australian accent, but he is a proud Yorkshireman through and through.
“I was born here but grew up in Australia. I went there in 1986 when I was six. But I’ve been back 20 years now. I just haven’t lost the accent. I am, though, English through and through, which is always strange when the Ashes are on.
“I was born in Calderdale Hospital and live in Huddersfield now. My wife’s from Huddersfield as well.”
Waddington is new into his role as treasurer, which is part of a change in a number of senior positions at a club who are keen to progress both on and off the field.
They have a new first-team captain for 2025, batter Chris Brook, and have had a new chair in Andy Stokes for approximately a year now. Kira Ball is also the club’s new secretary.
Picture courtesy of Outlane CC. Outlane’s first team.
“We should be going up next season – that’s the goal,” continued Waddington. “Chris is trying to recruit first-teamers. He’s a quality cricketer himself, batting wise.
“We shouldn’t be in that bottom division. We finished mid-table last season, as did the second-team.
“We’re a club who has to generate all our own funds. Our social side of it is well run, we have a nice bar etc. But the cricket has to be the number one, really.
“With two teams in the bottom division, that’s not the ideal scenario long-term because we have some talented juniors, and we want to keep them.
“We have a couple of kids playing West Yorkshire representative cricket, and we want them to stay with us. We also have a few playing in the Taverners, which is the local Halifax rep team.
“We’ve stayed fairly stagnant for a while in terms of the cricketing quality, but we’ve grown our juniors in a really healthy way.
Picture courtesy of Outlane CC. New first-team captain Chris Brook with the award and second-team skipper Gareth Davis with the microphone.
“I’ve just passed on the role of junior co-ordinator to Jordan Croft and his partner Ebony Hevingham because I’ve gone into other jobs. As you know, with everything that needs doing at local clubs, there’s not enough people.
“Our juniors, we grew from around 35 kids to what we’re hoping will be 120-130, including All Stars, next season.
“Next year, we will have All Stars, two Under 9s teams, three Under 11s, two Under 13s and an Under 15s. And we started a girls team last year as well.”
As a former junior co-ordinator, Waddington says: “It’s a real passion of mine to get more kids involved in cricket.”
And he is confident of a further increase in numbers in the years to come.
Waddington, who captained the club’s Sunday team in 2024 but will play Saturday cricket in 2025, added: “This year, we had 48 senior members and 90 juniors. The good thing is that we’re sort of the only cricket club in HD3. And there’s a massive new development at the top of HD3.
Picture courtesy of Outlane CC. The club’s ground in Lindley, Huddersfield.
“That means, hopefully, there’s a good pool of extra members. We can get going, you know, as long as we do the right things to steer kids into cricket over football.
“I think, as I’m sure many of you reading this do, that it’s the best sport in the world. It’s growing, and that’s what we want.
“We’re another two years away from having further juniors coming through into the first team. The quality’s there, undoubtedly.
“We’ve just got a grant of just over £10,000, and our changing rooms are being fully refurbished over the winter. That starts in January.
“We’ve invested in the cosmetics around the clubhouse, so we’re investing for the future to make it a place where kids and adults can come socially as well as the cricket.”
So if you are local to Outlane and shout, ‘Cricket ground’, think about dropping in and maybe getting involved. Just don’t expect to hit the M62 with a six. It seems that’s a challenge too great.
Picture courtesy of Outlane CC. The club promote Halifiax-based suicide prevention charity, Andy’s Man Club.
