Reflections by Peter Stafford ASK any right-minded local cricket-follower to write down the names of the top dozen best batsmen to have played in the Fort Sterling Bolton League, and if the names of the two Farnworth professionals Ken Rickards and Rod Bower aren't on it then the adjective 'right-minded' would have to be called into question!

Recent events at Bridgeman Park would suggest that the present incumbent, Brad Hodge, might soon be demanding inclusion in the list - already he has broken Rickards' individual score record, and would appear to be well on the way to 1,000 and beyond.

But of all the names that might qualify for consideration, those of Mir, Marsh, Waugh, Taylor, Long, Hayden and the rest, that of Ken Rickards stands out on its own in one important respect.

He was the first, indeed the only batsman, to produce the kind of figures which nowadays are becoming commonplace, at a time when bowlers held the whiphand, when centuries were a talking point, and when a team total of 200 guaranteed a headline. When he was brought into the Bolton League by Jim Gledhill, then Farnworth's cricket chairman, his brief test match career was over. Sixty seven on debut against England in 1948, 37 runs in his second match at Melbourne, and that was it. Unable to break into the West Indian first five which comprised Stollmeyer, Rae, Weekes, Worrell and Walcott, he came over to England to try his hand at league professionalism.

At Darwen he hit eight centuries in his first three years, before moving to Farnworth in 1955.

In the memoirs he completed shortly before his death, Jim Gledhill recalls, "I had one great stroke of fortune. I was able to persuade Ken Rickards, a West Indian Test batsman, to become our pro - at £15 per week! What Jim doesn't say it that he was strongly criticised by many club-members at Farnworth who told him in no uncertain terms that he would bring the club to bankruptcy by paying Rickards that kind of money!

Although Rickards made an indifferent start to the season, 216 in his first eight innings, the locals soon took to him, and before long he was attracting spectators to Bridgeman Park in much the same way as Weekes and Worrell were pulling them in at Bacup and Radcliffe.

He was a quiet, gentlemanly figure, immensely popular with the players, and a fine, flowing batsman, equally at home on front or back foot. It was on June 18 that he played the innings which sent shock-waves around the league, an unbeaten 156 at Tonge.

No batsman in 25 years had ever topped the 150-mark, and it was to be another 15 years before it happened again. Now he was in full flow. In the calendar month of July, he hit 610 runs, and at one stage had scored 503 runs without having been dismissed, almost certainly a unique occurrence.

On July 23 his 120 against Westhoughton took him past Bulcock's league record, and a week later he became the only batsman in the first 47 years of the League's history to reach a thousand runs. On the season's final day his third century, 109 at Heaton, hoisted his total to 1,389, a figure only overhauled 20 years later, appropriately enough by Rod Bower, one of his successors at Bridgeman Park. It's worth remembering, too, that his 1,389 runs were scored in the days before six-hits were recognised, and when only 22 matches per season were played. Indeed, had he maintained his end of season average over an extra four games, and there was nothing to suggest that he wouldn't have, then his final aggregate would have been way ahead of anything that has been achieved since.

He went past the 50 mark 13 times. On six of those occasions he was undefeated in the 80's and 90's when the innings or the game ended, and he could quite easily have finished the season with nine centuries instead of just the three.

Arthur Crook, who kept wicket for Tonge in 1955, recalls the memory of Rickards with mixed feelings, as well he might, for the West Indian took over 300 runs from the Castle Hill attack during the season.

One can only imagine the feelings of Lancashire leg-spinner Jimmy Wood, sent out to deputise for Fred Hartley that day in June, although in fairness to Wood, the accompanying scorecard shows that he acquitted himself quite reasonably in the circumstances. To put Rickards' season into some kind of final perspective, only three other batsmen, Harry Catterall, Les Smith and Les Sigsworth managed to hit a century in what turned into a batsman's summer, and when the final statistics were published, Rickards' average of 92.60 was 60 runs better than that of Sigsworth in second place, and the highest-ever achieved by any Bolton League batsman.

One man - one season - unforgettable for those who were around at the time.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.