Lives in Cricket No 52 - Schooled in Cricket (2nd edition)

155 Chapter Eighteen Two phenomena – cricket on Boxing Days and Johnny playing in it from 1949 until old age Outdoor cricket in the middle of winter has been a surprising success – and is one of the unofficial wonders of the world and universe to those who have been inducted – and Johnny Lawrence was playing in these matches from their inception until ripe old age. A leading light in the organisation of friendly and non- professional cricket and a friend of Johnny’s, Ron Yeomans with others in the Leeds area was instrumental in setting up the northern section of the Cricket Society (which soon became the Northern Cricket Society) in 1948 and starting the Boxing Day matches the following year where the Society team would play against the host side. The first two Boxing Day matches were at Collingham and then one year at Whitkirk. Since then Bramhope, Alwoodley, Thorpe Arch and Boston Spa (TABS) and the present long-standing venue of North Leeds have been the hosts. Cricket Societies emerged after 1945 as a way of keeping cricket alive in winter and Johnny would often be a speaker at meetings and sometimes appeared on a ‘brains trust’. On October 24, 1949 for example, he appeared with John Arlott, Arthur Wood and Yorkshire CCC secretary John Nash on such a panel at a Society meeting. What a pity no recordings tended to be made of such events. Derrick Boothroyd wrote a full match report for the Yorkshire Post (reprinted in Society’s booklet of 1950) of that first game back in 1949 and as it is a wonderful piece of writing full of purple prose so I will quote from it extensively. “The Boxing Day cricket match on a matting wicket at Collingham between the Northern Section of the Cricket Society led by Maurice Leyland and a village team brought surprise to the non-cricket enthusiasts who left their Yule