Northern Premier Cricket League

The Northern Premier Cricket League is a cricket league in the North West of England and was designated as an ECB Premier League in 2000.[1] Prior to that date it was known as the Northern Cricket League.

Because the Northern Premier Cricket League had no formal feeder league and no automatic relegation and promotion, the ECB suggested on several occasions that its ECB Premier League status might be withdrawn. As from 2017, the Palace Shield became the Northern Premier League's feeder league and promotion and relegation between the two leagues took place for the first time at the end of the 2017 season.

History

The Northern Cricket League was founded on 10 November 1951,[2] in controversial circumstances.

Several of the clubs in the west of the area covered by the Ribblesdale League had been unhappy for some time about the format of that League. The League had a membership of 18 clubs which meant that only 5 opponents in the League were played against twice per season whilst the remainder were played against once. This group of clubs met secretly on 7 October 1951 and produced a handwritten document which stated:

The following Ribblesdale League clubs:- Blackpool, Chorley, Darwen, Fleetwood, Lancaster, Leyland, Morecambe, St Annes being duly authorised by their respective Committees are resolved from this meeting to request the Ribblesdale League to form a West Section, comprising the above named clubs together with Leyland Motors, Furness and Kendal. Failing agreement on the part of the Ribblesdale League the above eight clubs pledge themselves to resign forthwith from the Ribblesdale League and to create a new league, which would include an invitation to Leyland Motors, Furness, Kendal and Preston.[3]

At the AGM of the Ribblesdale League, held in Whalley on 10 November 1951, the motion was proposed to form West and East sections with the West section comprising Blackpool, Chorley, Darwen, Fleetwood, Lancaster, Leyland, Morecambe, and St Annes, plus two new clubs Furness and Kendal (both from the North Lancashire Cricket League) along with Leyland Motors if they wished to play in the West section.

After discussion the vote was 9–9 and was defeated on the casting vote of the President who had earlier expressed distaste at the way the western clubs had acted.[4]

The eight clubs duly resigned from the Ribblesdale League, as did Leyland Motors, and representatives of these clubs along with those of Furness and Kendal then met at the Swan Hotel in Whalley where the Northern Cricket League was formed. Preston Cricket Club were invited to join the new league as the twelfth team. The invitation was accepted but they remained in the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition for one further year before participating in the Northern Cricket League's second season in 1953.[5]

Furness left the league after the 1958 season to be replaced by Netherfield, but there were to be no further changes to the membership until Barrow joined the league in 2004. More recent changes in the membership can be seen below. Leyland merged with lower level club BTR in 2000 and adopted the name Leyland and Farington, while Leyland Motors were known as Leyland DAF between 1991 and 2000. Founder members Darwen left the league after the 2016 season. In 2017 promotion and relegation was agreed between the Northern League and Palace Shield and at the end of the season Garstang and Fulwood & Broughton replaced Lancaster and Kendal.

Champions

Year	Champions
1952	St Annes
1953	Furness
1954	Blackpool
1955	Blackpool
1956	Kendal
1957	Lancaster
1958	Furness
1959	Kendal
1960	Blackpool
1961	Leyland
1962	Blackpool
1963	Blackpool
1964	Blackpool
1965	Blackpool
1966	Darwen
1967	Blackpool and Preston (joint champions)
1968	Morecambe
1969	Blackpool
1970	Preston
1971	Chorley
1972	Fleetwood
1973	Leyland Motors
1974	Blackpool
1975	Fleetwood
1976	Lancaster
1977	Lancaster
1978	Lancaster
1979	Lancaster
1980	Chorley
1981	Leyland
1982	Blackpool
1983	Preston
1984	Blackpool
1985	Fleetwood
1986	Lancaster
1987	Darwen
1988	Blackpool
1989	Blackpool
1990	Blackpool
1991	Leyland
1992	Morecambe
1993	Kendal
1994	Kendal
1995	Morecambe
1996	St Annes
1997	Netherfield
1998	Netherfield
1999	Darwen
2000	Netherfield
2001	Netherfield
2002	Darwen
2003	Darwen
2004	Fleetwood
2005	St Annes
2006	Morecambe
2007	St Annes
2008	Netherfield
2009	St Annes
2010	Leyland
2011	St Annes
2012	Fleetwood
2013	Leyland
2014	Blackpool
2015	Morecambe
2016	Leyland
2017	Netherfield
2018	Blackpool
2019	Leyland

[6]

Wins	Club
17	Blackpool (including one shared)
7	Leyland
7	St Annes
6	Lancaster
6	Netherfield
5	Darwen
	Fleetwood
	Morecambe
4	Kendal

National Club Cricket Championship honours

Year	Club
1996	Chorley Cricket Club – runners-up
1995	Chorley Cricket Club – winners
1994	Chorley Cricket Club – winners
1992	Kendal Cricket Club – runners-up
1990	Blackpool Cricket Club – winners
1975	Blackpool Cricket Club – runners-up

[7]

Performance by season from 2000

Key
Gold	Champions
Blue	Left League
Red	Relegated

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Barrow					11	8	12	9	9	6	2	8	2	2	5	7	4	10	7	12
Blackpool	5	3	5	12	7	3	10	10	3	7	5	5	9	11	1	4	2	4	1	3
Carnforth ¹							9	12	11	12	12	11	14
Chorley	3	2	6	7	5	9	13	11	7	3	14	3	13	7	12	9	5	5	5	7
Darwen ²	2	5	1	1	3	4	3	3	8	11	4	7	7	10	3	3	11
Fleetwood	7	10	9	10	1	7	7	13	13	10	10	14	1	5	6	2	3	7	9	4
Fulwood & Broughton																			10	5
Garstang																			6	2
Kendal	8	4	4	4	6	5	2	4	2	8	11	9	4	8	7	12	8	11		10
Lancashire Colts ³											9	10	10	12	9
Lancaster	9	12	11	8	12	13	5	8	12	13	7	12	11	3	14	10	13	12
Leyland ⁴								7	6	9	1	2	3	1	2	5	1	3	4	1
Leyland & Farington ⁴	10	9	10	11	13	11	14
Leyland Motors ⁴	11	11	12	9	10	10	11
Longridge																				6
Morecambe	4	7	2	5	4	6	1	2	4	5	6	6	8	4	10	1	12	9	11
Netherfield	1	1	3	3	2	2	4	6	1	4	8	4	5	9	8	8	6	1	2	8
Penrith															11	6	10	6	8	11
Preston	12	8	8	6	8	12	8	5	10	2	13	13	6	13	13	13	7	8	12
St Annes	6	6	7	2	9	1	6	1	5	1	3	1	12	6	4	11	9	2	3	9
	[8]	[9]	[10]	[11]	[12]	[13]	[14]	[15]	[16]	[17]	[18]	[19]	[20]	[21]	[22]	[23]	[24]	[25]	[26]

^1 — Carnforth left the league after the 2012 season to join the Westmorland Cricket League

^2 — Darwen left the league after the 2016 season to join the Lancashire League

^3 — Lancashire Colts withdrew from league cricket after the 2014 season

^4 — Leyland & Farington and Leyland Motors (Leyland DAF in 2000) merged under the name Leyland after the 2006 season

gollark: Wait, it's *also* 32-bit?

gollark: That explains basically nothing, though?

gollark: I'm not sure how a memory test which runs under Windows is meant to work, though.

gollark: There shouldn't be errors in it at that frequency.

gollark: How do you keep getting *such* bad RAM?!

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] List of ECB Premier Leagues Archived 15 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine

[2] Northern League history

[3] Northern League history

[4] Ribblesdale League history

[5] Northern League history

[6] Northern Premier Cricket League archive

[7] ECB National Club Championship roll of honour

[8] "2000 League Table".

[9] "2001 League Table".

[10] "2002 League Table".

[11] "Division One - 2003".

[12] "Division One - 2004".

[13] "Division One - 2005".

[14] "Division One - 2006".

[15] "Division One - 2007".

[16] "Division One - 2008".

[17] "Division One - 2009".

[18] "Division One - 2010".

[19] "Division One - 2011".

[20] "Division One - 2012".

[21] "Division One - 2013".

[22] "Division One - 2014".

[23] "Division One - 2015".

[24] "Division One - 2016".

[25] "Division One - 2017".

[26] "Division One - 2018".

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