50,000th County League game set for Langley Mill
by Chris Higginbottom / Alan Rowley, 17th August 2006

The Derbyshire County Cricket League celebrate their 50,000th league game when Langley Mill United host Clowne Town at Station Road on Saturday. Before the game, the Mayor of Amber Valley Borough Council, Councillor Norman Bull, and the Mayor of Broxtowe Borough Council, Councillor Doug Wilcockson, will jointly present medals and other awards to the players, umpires, scorers and home club. There will be a display of old photographs and clippings from Langley Mill in the pavilion.

When the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Border League was formed in 1920, with twenty teams based around the tramway from Ripley to Nottingham, little could those founding fathers have suspected that 86 years later, it would have grown to the 180 teams that it contains today, and that it would cover the length (almost) and breadth of the entire county of Derbyshire, as well as having member clubs from both Staffordshire and Leicestershire, while still retaining a foothold in Nottinghamshire.

Langley Mill United Cricket Club - cup winners and league runners-up, 1922

The 75th season, in 1994, was celebrated by way of a game against the League Cricket Conference and the publication of a commemorative book. This year, too, sees a significant milestone reached, and one that few Leagues, if any, anywhere in the country can have attained. On August the 19th 2006, the Derbyshire XXXX County League, into which that small beginning has evolved, sees the 50,000th scheduled match to count in its League tables played.

It was originally intended to attempt to count down the fixture list on that day in order to decide which game would signify this achievement, but it was suggested that it would be more fitting if the occasion were to be marked at the ground of the League's sole remaining founder member. So it is with pleasure that we announce that the game at Station Road between Langley Mill United 2nd XI and Clowne Town 2nd XI will be the game that officially represents the passing of this milestone. It is also fitting that Clowne Town are Langley Mill's opponents, as they are relative newcomers, having joined as the new millennium began, and represent the current northern limit of the League's geographical spread.

The fact that the game is also a second team contest from one of the divisions further down the League also serves to show the League's commitment to cricket at all levels, not just at the top. Both teams and all the match officials will receive commemorative medals, and there will be other ceremonies on the day to mark the occasion. The Mayors of Amber Valley and Broxtowe, the two districts which form the area which contained most of the original member clubs, will be present to make the presentations, and representatives of Kimberley Institute, the only other founder member club still in existence and who now play in the Nottinghamshire Premier League and the South Nottinghamshire Cricket League, will be present.

Harking back to the very first day of all this, the original Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Border League was:

Division 1: Beggarlee United, Bulwell, Cinderhill Colliery, Derbys & Notts Electric Power Company, Digby Colliery, Hallam Fields, Kimberley Institute, Langley Mill United, Loscoe Colliery, Manners Colliery

Division 2: Beggarlee United 2nds, Bulwell 2nds, Bulwell Adult School, Cinderhill Colliery 2nds, Digby Colliery 2nds, Kimberley Institute 2nds, Langley Mill Utd 2nds, Loscoe Colliery 2nds, Manners Colliery 2nds, Nuthall Institute

The opening fixtures should have been on May 1st 1920, but on the Thursday evening the League, after a period of incessant rain had saturated the pitches, moved those fixtures to August 28th. So the first games took place on May 8th; Langley Mill beat Derbys & Notts Electric Power Co. easily, RHT Turner (who also captained Nottinghamshire that year) scoring 61 and Ratcliffe taking 6-12.

From those beginnings, the League grew steadily; clubs from the Derby area began to join in the post-War period, and when the Derby and District League folded in 1989 many clubs were absorbed from that organisation. There was further expansion in 1992, when the Central Derbyshire League merged, and in the last few years there has been an influx of clubs from the Burton & District League and the Bassetlaw & District League. Only the north west of the county, the High Peak region, is not now represented, but the formation of the Derbyshire pyramid gives access to the higher reaches of the League to clubs from the Derbyshire and Cheshire League and the Yorkshire and Derbyshire League who aspire to Premier League cricket.

On top of this there has been the steady growth of existing clubs, forming third, fourth and even fifth teams from the products of their youth systems and ensuring that cricket in the county remains strong and vibrant. The County League, now regionalised below Division 1, forms the feeder league to the ECB Derbyshire Premier League, which was formed from the top division of the County League in 1999, and is regarded as one of the strongest Premier Leagues in the country.

Those founding fathers would surely be proud of the League that they formed all those years ago.