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History

The Drakes Huddersfield Cricket League is the premier cricket competition in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. The league has been in existence since 1891 and now has 44 clubs representing suburbs of Huddersfield and villages in the Huddersfield District area and surrounds.

A number of local players have come from the Huddersfield League to play in the English County Championship, mainly for Yorkshire and then have gone on to represent England. Other county players, and past and future Test Match cricketers have played for clubs in the Huddersfield Cricket League.

Six of the inaugural ten clubs which formed The Huddersfield Cricket League – Armitage Bridge, Golcar, Holmfirth, Lascelles Hall, Linthwaite and Slaithwaite are still member clubs today. The other 4 clubs who played in the first league season of 1892 were: Cliffe End, Huddersfield United, Lockwood and Meltham Mills.

The League, the most westerly of the many Yorkshire leagues, is to this day, based in and around the Huddersfield District, with many of the clubs situated in the picturesque Pennine areas of the Colne and Holme Valleys.

In the West we reach right up into the Pennines, over the hill, though still in Yorkshire, and down into the village of Delph, where we find Delph & Dobcoss Cricket Club. To the East we have two clubs, Cawthorne and Hoylandswaine, who are just across the boundary in South Yorkshire. The latter also being the most southerly club in the League. Our most northerly club is Elland which is in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale. And finally, the league once again boasts Cartworth Moor as one of its clubs, whose Gill Lane ground standing at 1020feet above sea level, is allegedly the highest cricketing venue in the North of England.

It was stated by cricket statisticians that by 1991 the Huddersfield area had produced more first-class cricketers than any other town or city in England. Let's hope for more of the same in the future, as the League goes from strength to strength.

We look forward to seeing you around our League in the seasons to come.

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