Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

79 Chapter Fifteen Accrington The enthusiasm for league cricket, in Lancashire in particular, arose for economical and geographical reasons. The county game was largely based in Manchester and for most cricket lovers it was a rare and real treat to get to Old Trafford. As S.F.Hayes wrote in The Cricketer in 1937: ‘To many boys and men in those little grey towns, which persist as the mark of the Industrial Revolution, Old Trafford is as far away and inaccessible as Lord’s or Canterbury.’ Before the Second World War, quite two-thirds of Lancashire’s employed population were not allowed off work on either Whit Mondays or August Bank Holidays and even if they had the time, could not afford the trip. This helped the growth of the Leagues and enabled many local clubs to pay a professional more than did a county club. So it was possible on payment of sixpence (2½p) to view some of the best cricketers on a full Saturday afternoon. Accrington, Lancashire, 1911. The town is a centre of the cotton and textile industries. It also has the reputation of manufacturing the hardest and densest building bricks in the world, Accrington Nori, which were used in the construction of the Empire State Building, and for the foundation, at least, of Blackpool Tower. Then there is its football club, Accrington Stanley, sometime an object of gentle mockery. Thither went Buck Llewellyn in the spring of 1911, collecting his wife and four daughters from the St Pancras area, London, where they had probably been staying with his father-in-law, and arriving on 13 April. Accrington Cricket Club was formed in 1846. Shane Warne, Wes Hall, Bobby Simpson, Eddie Barlow, David Lloyd and Graeme Fowler are all international cricketers who have played for Accrington, but Llewellyn was the first-ever Test match cricketer to appear either for them or in the Lancashire League. The club joined with twelve others in 1891 in creating the North-East Lancashire Cricket League. The following year the League’s name was changed to the Lancashire Cricket League. From the earliest days of the competition, there was intense rivalry between the