Tideswell Cricket Club
In October a meeting was held at which it was decided to wind up Tideswell Cricket Club. Although Tideswell has hosted cricket since wellback in the 19th century, there has not been a permanent club in existence since then. The TCC that has just closed down dates back to the mid-1980s, when one Reg Jakeman moved to Wardlow Mires. He was running a team called Silverdale (after the school in Sheffield), and decided to rename it Tideswell, even though there was at the time no cricket ground in the village. Home matches were played at Peak Forest, then later at Hope Valley College. Most of the players were from the Sheffield area. In 2000 a home cricket ground appeared, thanks to the lottery grant that helped to create the Sports Complex.
In 2013 TCC started playing league cricket in the Yorkshire & Derbyshire League 6th Division. Oddly, by 2017 things had gone full circle, and most of the players and the captain were Sheffield-based.
By the end of the 2017 season there were often only 1 or 2 locally-based cricketers in an XI, and this was dwindling to none. Our captain was offered the captaincy of Baslow’s first XI and he saw that as the way forward. TCC was left with no captain, no team, no groundsman and no money in the bank. Closure was inevitable.
Tideswell CC is not the only cricket club to fold. Baslow 2nds went last year, Eyam CC has ceased to play and there are many others which haveg iven up the unequal fight to exist. The Yorkshire & Derbyshire League is down to 5 divisions and in 2018 that could be just 4.
We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the club in whatever way during its 32 years of existence. We hope you enjoyed playing on grounds all over Derbyshire and in Manchester, Cheshire and South Yorkshire, not to mention the tours that used to be organised to places such as Morecambe,Rottingdean (near Brighton) and Crickhowell in the Welsh Borders.
The cricket ground is not about to be dug up, so who knows, maybe another group will want to take up the mantle. No doubt the Sports Complex Management Committee (current Chairman Will Brindley) will be pleased to talk to anyone who comes forward. Meanwhile the club’s assortment of kit will be passed on to any cricket club or organisation that can make good use of it. This is a requirement of the TCC club constitution.
Bob Walkden