Cricket ClubCricket
In the depths of winter, a cricketer’s thoughts begin to turn to summer. Next summer and how it might unfold but also last summer and what it brought.
Plans are already afoot at the Barney club. They have announced a new 1st XI captain in Karl Carver, who replaces James Quinn after seven years.
Carver, a former Yorkshire bowler, is a natural choice for the job. He has been Barney’s leading player for the past four years and in 2024 won the Tees Valley Player of the Year for the second successive time and the third in all. His figures for the season were typically impressive: 1,234 runs in all competitions at an average of 53.65; 58 wickets at 19.36 from 299 overs and countless spectacular stops at his preferred fielding position of short cover.
It will be exciting to see how Carver leads the side and there will no doubt be much more of that in the months before the season starts. But this is also a time for reflection and as they sit by their metaphorical firesides, Barney’s players have much on which to reflect.
The 2024 season was the most successful in Barney’s 192-year history. From top to bottom, from seniors to juniors there were superb performances and magnificent victories.
James Quinn led the first XI to two more trophies, the Kerridge Cup, the oldest club knockout competition in the world, and the NYSD Premier 100, a tournament of slightly younger vintage.
These compensated amply for a slightly disappointing league season. To be at Park Drive, Hartlepool, to watch the team chase down 229 in the Kerridge final against 11-time winners Darlington on a blissful July afternoon, was to be alive indeed.
Of the 127 league matches in which Quinn led the side, Barney won 60 and drew 30. They were league champions in his first year in 218, reached the final of the National Club Twenty20 in 2021 making them northern champions and won six other trophies under him.
He was a hugely fitting and popular choice as clubman of the year, the first time it has been awarded to a player. “It has been an absolute privilege to captain this great club,” said Quinn. Massive thanks to all the players, committee members and supporters who backed me and the team over the past seven years. I can’t wait to be back amongst the ranks next year.”
But there was more where the first XI came from. The second XI won the Division Two 100 for the fourth consecutive year and astonishingly have won 22 matches in succession, a sequence unlikely to be beaten. They also won promotion from Division Two on the last nail-biting day of the season.
And then there were the juniors. The U14s became champions of County Durham with a memorable, comeback win in the final against highly-fancied Whitburn and the U13s rounded off an all-conquering season with a play-off final win against Middlesbrough.
Finally, perhaps most significantly, women’s and girls’ cricket came to Barney. Thrillingly they won their inaugural match: it is not going away. What a great season it was. What another lies ahead.
SB
