READING the two columns about Little Lever in the Daily Telegraph, one in the main paper, the other in the sport supplement, I was forcibly struck yet again by the vast gulf that divides junior cricket nowadays with that of my own youth, when I was a junior member at Kearsley.

I remember one evening when three or four of us aged around 12 or 13, all club members, had sneaked on to the ground to play cricket on the outfield, some 10 yards in from the boundary.

We had not been playing long when a senior official of the club came striding towards us shouting 'Get off that field!'

As we pulled the stumps up and scurried off to the 'back field' where we usually played, I remember wondering what was wrong with playing cricket on a cricket ground, as opposed to the dirt pitch we had cultivated on our back field, and on which facing John Roberts without pads, even at that age, wasn't exactly a bed of roses!

I recall, too, that same club official umpiring in one of the first 3rd Xl matches in which I played. I was fielding next to him at square-leg, when a batsman was struck on the pad. When I appealed on my own, he turned on me.

"You ... don't ... appeal ... for ... lbw ... from ... square ... leg," he roared, emphasising every word with a poke in the chest that sent me staggering from square-leg to mid-wicket! Nowadays, of course, it would be common assault, but in those days it was, for me, merely a major step on the cricketing learning curve.

So much so, that when I was playing for Farnworth during the 60s I was regularly berated by Duncan Worsley, our professional, for not joining him in his more optimistic appeals for leg-before. I never told him the reason, but should he read this, Dunc will understand that it was all to do with a deep-rooted fear of being attacked by the square-leg umpire!

I remember, too, walking back to Kearsley across the Moss after playing in a third team game at Walkden, carrying my tennis bag with the bat handle sticking out of the end. Last Saturday night I had a word with Danny Guest at Astley Bridge as he came out of the changing-room carrying a cricket bag, which, when I was his age, would have held not only my cricket tackle, but my entire possessions!

In 1949 I was a member of the third team at Kearsley, along with, among others, John Roberts, Fearnley Davis and Ernie Johnson, each of whom went on to make own niche in local cricket and beyond.

We won the championship, and our reward was a trophy small enough to fit comfortably in one's top pocket. I've won others since, larger in size maybe, but not in importance! Nowadays, thank goodness, it's all so different.

A week last Friday night I was at Egerton for a meeting, and before it began, a few of us were sitting watching youngsters of all ages playing cricket-based games and receiving coaching and encouragement.

It was a far cry from that evening all those years ago when my friends and I were told to 'get off that field'! Thank goodness no one ever shouted that to those lads from Little Lever to whom I referred at the top of this article.

At Trent Bridge on Monday afternoon, Jason Whittaker, Sam Cruickshanks and the rest of his side brought a lot of honour, prestige and good publicity to the Bolton area, and we should be proud of the players, their school, and the two clubs, Darcy Lever and Little Lever, who have nurtured them.

There are those, and I must confess to having had the same feeling myself from time to time, who think that there is too much junior cricket played.

There has certainly been a giant leap from the days of just one third team match per week to the present time, when a really talented 15 year-old probably has the opportunity to play cricket on more days than may be good for him. It's not really a case of too much cricket, more a case for a streamlining of what exists in clubs, leagues, schools, inter-league competitions and festivals, in order that the players themselves get the maximum enjoyment and benefit out of it all. Last weekend the Bolton League Colts side performed yet another demolition job on a rival league when a total of 264 for two was reached without the captain, Tim Rees, being required to bat.

Mark Atherton and Gareth Carson's stand of 244 provided a new record for the MEN Trophy competition, and the fact that it was against the Bolton Association, normally one of the stronger sides at that level, gave it extra importance.

Add to that the form of Rees, Dickinson and Tong against the Saddleworth League, the standard of cricket played in last week's Reuben Mather final, and the number of young players making meaningful contributions to first-team cricket, and it would appear that, at the moment, there are very few worries on the junior side of things.

One final comparison with days long gone. By the time Tim Rees had reached the age at which I was happy just to have secured a place in Kearsley's third team, he, on the other hand, had played in a World Cup Series, made first-team 50s, captained an inter-league side, hit a score of 170-odd for his county, and played cricket in Australia.

And I'll bet he did it all without ever once having been poked in the chest by an umpire!