Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

26 Fifty-two years later Alexandra Meadows staged a Championship match when Lancashire broke new ground by playing there in May 1932 with Glamorgan providing the opposition. But the weather gods were unkind to say the least. It began raining at tea time on the first day and continued for the next two days. Glamorgan paid another visit to Alexandra Meadows three years later and they again brought the rain with them: only five and three-quarter hours play were possible on the first two days and none at all on the third and final day with the match being drawn. In between those two fixtures against the Welsh county, Lancashire managed innings victories over Worcestershire (1933) and Northamptonshire (1934). The Lancashire committee decided to wash their hands of Blackburn as a Championship venue and the fixture allocated to it for 1936 was switched to Preston. No further Championship games have been played in Blackburn although 21 second eleven fixtures were staged at Alexandra Meadows, the last of them in 1985. The East Lancashire club continues to thrive and has, in more recent times, attracted professionals of the calibre of Test players like Pakistan’s Fazal Mahmood and Australians Allan Border and Paul Reiffel. And the Hornby family’s legacy at the club, which still plays at Alexandra Meadows, lives on. After refurbishment in the 1990s, the new bar area was named the Hornby Lounge. Starting out for Lancashire In June 1867, Hornby – at the age of 20 – made his debut for Lancashire against Yorkshire in the first Roses match ever played. The game, which has subsequently been granted official status, was staged at the picturesque Station Road Ground, at Whalley in the Ribble Valley. It is the only first-class fixture to have been played at the Whalley Cricket Club, but the club did provide Born with a silver spoon The Alexandra Meadows ground in November 2012.