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53<br />
Highfield turns 95<br />
An institute in the<br />
hamlet of Highfield since<br />
1924, Highfield Cricket<br />
Club celebrates its 95th<br />
anniversary this year. The<br />
club’s extensive history<br />
was officially chronicled<br />
by current Chairman<br />
Gary Speakman back in<br />
1999 for the club’s 75th<br />
anniversary, and he hopes<br />
to bring that illustrious<br />
heritage to the forefront<br />
once again five years<br />
ahead of the centenary.<br />
Interestingly, the club<br />
actually predates its own<br />
birthday. ‘There was a<br />
Highfield Cricket Club<br />
around earlier than 1924,’<br />
Gary explains as we sit overlooking the beautiful,<br />
tree lined and tranquil cricket ground, ‘playing close<br />
by off Enfield Street but not on this ground. This<br />
incarnation of the club was created from scratch by<br />
colliery workers who were laid off work at the time.’<br />
The land used for the club was bequeathed by<br />
Major Blundell, proprietor of the Pemberton Colliery<br />
Company Ltd. and owner of much of the land in<br />
Highfield in the early twentieth century. The club<br />
was established as a recreational area to encourage<br />
a better work-life balance for miners, who for the<br />
nominal fee of two pennies a week deducted from<br />
their wage packet, could enjoy a subscription to the<br />
club.<br />
A keen cricketer himself, Gary’s interest in<br />
researching the club’s history may well stem from a<br />
coincidental connection: ‘When we were conducting<br />
the initial “who’s who” at the beginning, I found<br />
something rather astonishing,’ he tells me. ‘The<br />
very first chairman I could find was a WH Speakman<br />
– completely unrelated to me as far as I know! I’ve<br />
been involved with the club for 43 years now, but to<br />
have another Speakman who chaired the club at the<br />
outset is crazy.’<br />
Gary has now been Chairman of the club for fifteen<br />
years, and hopes to continue as the club reaches its<br />
centenary in 2024. ‘It would be a real honour to be<br />
Chairman for the hundredth anniversary but there is<br />
a democratic vote on all committee roles every year<br />
so we will wait and see. I’ve never fully retired as a<br />
player, so I do fill in now and then – well, I turn up!’<br />
‘I’ve always been interested in local history, and the<br />
strange thing about Highfield is there is no natural<br />
centre to it – however the hub of Highfield is St<br />
Mathews church, St Mathews Primary school and<br />
the cricket club,’ Gary continues. ‘A lot of the research<br />
process was social history – how the club managed<br />
to survive through the post-World War I era in the 20s,<br />
the Great Depression in the 30s and then through<br />
another World War. The fact that clubs with grounds
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