Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

137 Many happy returns Harrogate club has ever seen and he believes much of that is down to the simple advice Maurice gave him way back in those early days: “Don’t try anything silly early on”, but to, “concentrate on playing in the arc from cover point to mid-wicket.” “I never forgot that and I believe that is why I was more consistent than most players,” he insisted. Chadwick was not so much ‘more consistent than most’ as ‘most consistent’. His 30 seasons at St George’s Road produced more than 22,000 runs for the club in competitive games. No other player has managed to reach even 10,000 runs for the club. He twice finished a Yorkshire League season with an average over 100 - his 137.20, in 1969, still stands as the league’s highest batting average. Though rightly proud of his batting achievements Chadwick actually places his eight for 11 bowling stint for Harrogate against Grimethorpe MWC, in 1962, ahead of them all as his greatest achievement. When Maurice eventually returned to Yorkshire in a coaching capacity he had no hesitation in encouraging Chadwick to attend the county nets and his young protégé duly went on to make a handful of first team appearances after a highly successful spell with the Colts. Though well past the level of excellence that took him from Harrogate to Headingley and on to Australia, in his prime, Maurice’s signing for Harrogate in 1947 was a homecoming that everyone connected with the club had always eagerly anticipated. Even during the war, in 1941, he had managed two appearances, scoring 41 against Leeds Zingari and 130 not out against Ackworth, and the esteem in which he was held by the Harrogate cricketing public was clear when he was honoured with a life membership of the club in 1948. On the field he enjoyed only limited personal success in his spell as a player-coach between 1947 and 1950. He hit 821 runs, with a highest score of 118 not out against Hull, and his 95 wickets in that time took him to 300 overall, but he remained one of Harrogate’s favourite sons and in later years more tributes were to come his way. *