Title snatched from our grasp

Local cricket legend Mel Whittle reminisces about his long career, with KEITH McHUGH.
I WAS extremely busy with work in the early part of 1984 and was considering finishing with cricket after one more season at Shaw St Pauls.

But after being approached by Oldham, I felt I had to grab the opportunity of playing in such a top side.

Oldham had the big West Indian Franklyn Stephenson as their professional after he had joined them from Royton, and Howard Jump was captain.

They were the top team in the CLL at the time and had won the title in 1982 with West Indies Test star Larry Gomes as professional.

He was a tremendous player, scoring 1,600 runs at Oldham during that season yet not hitting a single six.

Stephenson was a great professional at the Pollards in 1984 and batsmen were so frightened of him that they used to get out to me!

Stephenson took over 100 wickets yet he did not bowl in seven games during that season — more about that later — otherwise I think he would have got 140.

I always remember a game involving Stephenson at Middleton.

We batted first and got a score of about 270 and there was no way they were going to get the runs.

But then it rained and we only had about an hour and 50 minutes in which to bowl 48 overs.

Stephenson and I decided to bowl off two paces and we managed to get all the overs in, reducing them to 87 for four or something like that. It just showed what we could do at that time.

Alas, the only thing I did not win during my many years in the CLL was the league title — and I consider I was robbed that season.

Oldham had gone through a bad period, the clubhouse had burned down and Portakabins were in place.

It was said that Oldham had the best team in the league, but had the worst dressing rooms.

They (the CLL) used that as an excuse against us, saying the pitch was unfit and we were not allowed to play four of our games at home.

It was absolutely unbelievable. We lost the league by a single point to Heywood, after we had been forced to forfeit a game against them.

At the time of the home ban, we were 17 points clear of Heywood so it undoubtedly cost us the title and I finished the season with 87 wickets. It would have been over 100.

I stopped at Oldham for a few seasons during which Carl Rackemann (Australia) and Leslayne Lambert (West Indies) were professionals, then in 1987 and ’88 we had the famous West Indies bowler Joel Garner.

I had a bit of a fall-out with Garner, so I returned to Crompton but when he left I went back to Oldham and enjoyed spells playing with Manoj Prabhakar (India) and Brad McNamara (Australia).

Then, in 1993, I was invited to join Kearsley in the Bolton League and they were the best cricket club I ever played for.

Despite the captain of the time — who later became a good friend — saying after three friendlies that I was not good enough, we won the league at the first attempt.

My first league game was at Horwich and there were a lot of people there to watch. I took six for 22 in that game and they could not get a bat on me!

I was voted players’ player of the year as an amateur at Kearsley in that season and won the professionals’ award two years later.

I then moved to Little Lever as professional for three years and had the good fortune to win the Bolton League title with them alongside my brother Les but, in 1998, I signed for Micklehurst, where I spent two years as pro before returning to Kearsley for the 2000 and 2001 seasons.

Eventually, I decided to go back to Oldham where I stayed — apart from a brief spell as professional at Micklehurst — until retiring on that high note of 100 wickets in my final season.




NEXT TIME: Mixing it with Windies pace demon Colin Croft and playing in the same side as the great Rohan Kanhai.