Cricket - Pre-war feat recalled (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Cricket - Pre-war feat recalled

10:29am Saturday 13th September 2008 in Cricket By Gazette Sports

CHRIS Miller's ten-wicket feat for Netherfield CC brought back memories of another local cricketer who took all ten - Kendal Cricket Club's Frank Graham back in the 1930s.

Coincidentally, he did the same thing on the same ground at Carnforth during a North Lancashire League match on May 9, 1936.

Graham, who was an opening fast bowler of great repute in the pre-war years, removed off all Carnforth's wickets to finish with final figures of 10-15 off 12.4 overs - five of them maidens.

His son Frank junior, who lives in Aynam Cote, Kendal, still has the mounted match ball and a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings in which the feat is recorded.

"When I saw the Gazette it just took me back to dad's ten wickets. He had offers from three counties to go professional but he had a good job as a draughtsman at Gilkes and the money was not enough."

Graham, who topped the averages that year with 81 wickets at an average of 8.44 runs - a record at that time for an amateur cricketer in Kendal - eventually moved away to Blackburn with his job when the Second World War intervened. But Frank junior, who also played cricket and football, and is a keen supporter of Kendal Town FC, or Netherfield as it was, moved back to the town with his wife several years ago.