70 short with one wicket in hand, Hilton defying a hostile final over from Trueman. Each side escaped with a draw in 1957, Alan Wharton recording Lancashire’s first Roses hundred since 1949 and although rain handicapped the 1958 matches Lancashire gained an eight-wicket victory at Headingley, where Statham took six for 16 in the first innings. In 1959, a vibrant, young Yorkshire team emerged but it came a cropper at Old Trafford, where Lancashire won with five minutes to spare. Whitsuntide was early and Lancashire set the pace. The left-handed Geoff Pullar made 76 and 105, Doug Padgett responded with a hundred for Yorkshire but Lancashire gained their first Roses victory at Manchester for 32 years. By August Bank Holiday, Yorkshire were chasing Surrey and Warwickshire with Lancashire out of the picture. Bramall Lane in that hot summer provided a batsman’s paradise for the Roses encounter, Pullar and Close making hundreds and Yorkshire gaining a lead on the first innings at 3.30pm on the final day. Aficionadoes of the 1920s nodded in approval. Yorkshire, thrillingly, won the Championship during the glorious summer of 1959 and they were soon in the forefront again in 1960 under a new professional captain in Vic Wilson. Lancashire, too, had a new skipper, Bob Barber succeeding Washbrook who had retired. At Whitsuntide, Lancashire gained a crushing victory by ten wickets, Yorkshire collapsing against the leg spin of Tommy Greenhough and Bob Barber and, in the second innings, Jack Dyson’s off breaks, on a dry, dusty pitch. Pullar made his third hundred in successive Roses matches, having made another against them in the Champion County v The Rest match at the end of 1959. The match ended on the second day, 20,000 having watched the White Rose fade away. Nevertheless, Yorkshire headed the table going into the 1960 August Bank Holiday fixtures which pitted first against second – Yorkshire v Lancashire at Old Trafford – and third against fourth – Middlesex v Sussex at Hove. Seldom had the holiday games been so crucial to the Championship’s outcome and the Roses clash on July 30 and August 1 and 2 was one of the finest in the long rivalry’s history. The match involved true sons of the rival shires. Only two of the 22 players, Lancashire’s Ken Grieves (Sydney, Australia) and Ken Higgs (Kidsgrove, Staffordshire), were born outside the counties’ boundaries. Both teams were immensely strong. Yorkshire had batting of quality: Brian Stott, Ken Taylor, Doug Padgett, Brian Close and Phil Sharpe, depth in the middle order, Ray Illingworth and Vic Wilson, a wicket-keeper who was one of the best in the country in Jimmy Binks, pace from Fred Trueman, supporting seam from Mel Ryan and slow left arm fromDon Wilson. Lancashire’s batting was not quite so good but the left-handed openers Geoff Pullar and Bob Barber, AlanWharton, Grieves and Peter Marner each made more than a thousand runs and Jack Dyson, Roy Collins and the wicket-keeper Geoff Clayton added substance to the middle order. But the bowling had the edge; Brian Statham and Higgs with the new ball, leg breaks from Barber, Grieves and Tommy Greenhough and off spin from Dyson. Each side excelled in the field. Binks assisted in 108 first-class dismissals, Clayton in 89. On the Yorkshire side, Close, Sharpe, the two Wilsons, Illingworth and Trueman were high in the list of the fielding tables with Grieves and Marner as their Lancashire equivalents. Fourteen – eight fromYorkshire, six from Lancashire – appeared in Test matches during their careers, Illingworth, Trueman, Padgett, Pullar, Statham, Barber and Lancashire v Yorkshire 141