Don Rhodes - Yorkshire Schools Cricket Final 1964
The most exciting game I ever played in myself at Shaw Lane was the final of the Yorkshire Schools Cricket Trophy in 1964 between the East Riding of Yorkshire and our own Barnsley Boys. I was captain. Myself and another Barnsley boy, Philip Aveyard had both been capped by Yorkshire schoolboys that season, as had the unfortunately named Duck, the captain of the East Riding team.
The game did not start too well for us. We were all out for 128, not an intimidating total. We took the final interval with the East Riding on 81 for 3 and Duck approaching 50. It looked all over bar the shouting.
On resumption, the East Riding progressed to 89 for 3. As one last throw of the dice, I had the bowlers change ends. Opening bowler Barry Elmore responded almost immediately. With his third ball, he bowled Duck for 51. Barry took 2 more wickets with the fifth and sixth balls of the same over. He then took wickets with the first 3 balls of his next over to leave the East Riding 93 for 9. To cap it all, Barry then caught the last batsman out fielding in the slips in the next over.
It was truly a match-winning performance. Barry finished with 8 for 43 off 13 overs. He’d taken 6 wickets in 7 balls, including 5 in 5. And, he’d done it wearing white plimsoles, not cricket boots. If he’d had boots on, it would have been no contest. If it had been rain-affected, we’d have had it.
Barry was built like the proverbial brick out-house and had been mainstay of a good Barnsley Boys football team in 1963/4. He bowled accurate off-cutters at a very sharp pace on the time-honoured principle that if you miss, I’ll hit. Having played a year of 
sport with Barry in both Barnsley Boys football and cricket teams, I never ever heard of him playing cricket again. Whatever he did with his life, I suspect he was always a good man to have in your team.
So Barnsley Boys had won the Yorkshire Schools cricket trophy for the first time since 1947. In the 1947 team was one Dickie Bird, at that time a bowler batting at number 8.......
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