Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

A family affair 36 had put in 34 years’ service with the Corporation and had risen to the position of building inspector. It is not known for certain but Ralph’s connection with the council may well have had some bearing on the fact that Leyland Road, in Harrogate, was named after his sister Hannah who was, of course, Maurice’s grand-mother. Ted was a keen local soccer player in his younger days, playing for his home village Bilton, although little else is known of his life prior to his career as a league cricket professional around the turn of the century. He was living in Oldfield Street, Wortley, Leeds, and still working as a stonemason when he married one of his neighbours, Mercy Lambert, on January 22, 1898 and when Maurice was born, in 1900. However, eight years later their daughter, Cora was born and this time the birth certificate shows Ted to be both ‘a professional cricketer’ and ‘stonemason’. According to one writer Ted plied his trade as a cricket professional in such distant parts as Kelso in Scotland to Plymouth and in between at Harrogate, the Lancashire clubs Leyland and Enfield, and Bradford League outfit Undercliffe. In 1910 he began playing professionally in the Saddleworth area and his first stop was Friarmere, a club based in a tiny windswept hamlet high on the Pennine Moors, three miles outside Oldham. Ted had taken the job as the groundsman and professional at the club and with two young children - Cora was two and Maurice was just short of his tenth birthday - he decided to move the whole family from Harrogate. They took a house next to the Friarmere ground and this was to be the family home for the next six years. The first year at Friarmere was a huge success, with the club carrying off the Saddleworth and District League championship without losing a game. But, while they went on to complete a hat-trick of title wins, Ted moved on at the end of the first season after receiving an offer to play for nearby Moorside in the Central Lancashire League. It must have been an offer he could not refuse. Club records show that he would be paid £5 per week plus a benefit match - a sizeable sum in those days. Up to this season the club pro’ was regularly changed but Ted clearly fitted the bill for Moorside and was to remain connected with the club, despite being given permission to turn out for Huddersfield