04 Sep LEEDS ON THE WINNERS PODIUM

With all the intriguing possibilities of the last matches in the Yorkshire Veterans Inter-District League the league table looks surprisingly similar to that before this round of matches, with Leeds topping the table ON 250 points, Huddersfield just 8 points behind on 242, West Riding finished one place higher on 231 changing places with Halifax on 224. Bradford were the fifth team with an outside chance of the title and they finished with 211. The other three teams in the league were Skipton on 144, Castleford on 139 and Wakefield on 127.

Both Huddersfield and Leeds finished with 36-20 scores at the expense of Halifax and Bradford. Before the round it was considered that Huddersfield had the more difficult fixture than Leeds and it was feared Huddersfield and Halifax might share the points and leave Leeds in the clear. West Riding, the 2022 champions, had much the easier fixture against Skipton but didn’t capitalise with a 33-23 result.

Leeds entered the competition this year for the first time since 2019 as they seemed in disarray between conflicting organisations in the intervening years, but how they’ve got it together this year is remarkable.

There were joint average winners of the home averages with a remarkable similarity of scores and not even Bowlsnet could split Huddersfield’s Ray Whitwam and Michael Robinson from the West Riding team. Both won all 7 matches, and obviously scored the maximum 147 and both conceded only 71 chalks with an average of +10.86. I wonder how many times that has happened not just in this league but others too? John Whiteley of Leeds won the away team averages winning 5 of his 6 matches with an average of +8.00, another remarkable performance playing on greens he hadn’t played before in this competition.

The league has another new applicant for 2024 with the Aire & Wharfe team who set a marker in the Hickson Trophy by winning through to the semi-finals at their first attempt before succumbing to the tournament hosts Halifax.

Another intriguing season ahead with Huddersfield needing to introduce more new blood for the season particularly after the most recent new recruits have performed so well.