Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

138 When Maurice retired from Yorkshire County Cricket Club as a player, at the end of the 1946 season, he still had a living to make and, in preparation for this day, he had begun working, in a commercial capacity, at Thomas Owen’s Paper Mill, Pool, the previous winter, alongside his old team-mate Herbert Sutcliffe. He retained his interest in the county club. At the 1947 annual general meeting he was immediately elected to the main committee, as the Harrogate district representative, and also found himself on the cricket committee - remaining in both these positions for four seasons. In June 1947 there was one last appearance on the Yorkshire team-sheet when he travelled north of the border and took part in a two-day game against Scotland at Selkirk. In the first innings he came in with the score on 119 for three and if anyone doubted the claims he made when announcing his retirement, that he could have managed at least one more season, he proceeded to hit 58 out of the next 94 runs and was unbeaten as Yorkshire declared on 213 for nine. He made only eleven in the second innings, before being stumped, and though the match ended in a draw it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip. Though now free from everyday press attention Maurice never ceased to be newsworthy. Only a month after that Scotland game the Yorkshire Evening Post featured him in their ‘My Greatest Thrill in Sport’ series and he told the tale of his century in his first Test against Australia. He may not have been headline news on the sports pages any longer but he was nevertheless still very popular. In fact, throughout his life he had been one of the first to step forward and volunteer for speaking and prize giving engagements and the family scrapbooks record him ‘doing the honours’ at race meetings, billiard clubs, sporting dinners, and the like. Even in retirement there was no shortage of people wanting to hear the inside story of the historic cricketing feats of the not so distant past. One such appearance was in November 1948 when Maurice made a happy return to the Saddleworth area where, nearly 40 years earlier, he had begun to take a serious interest in cricket. The occasion was the Uppermill Cricket Club’s annual Many happy returns