2008 News
Friday February 2008 - Famous Yorkshire Town to host Air New Zealand Golden Oldies World Cricket Festival
The historic Yorkshire town of Harrogate will host the 14th Air New Zealand Golden Oldies World Cricket Festival in 2010.
700 plus cricketers from all over the world are expected to attend the week-long Festival to be held from 8 to 15 August 2010.
The Golden Oldies World Secretariat made the announcement today, a month before the sell-out 13th Golden Oldies World Cricket Festival in Queenstown, New Zealand is to take place.
It will be the third time that the biennial Festival has been held in England following Brighton in 1986 and Birmingham in 1994.
Harrogate, a famous spa town in North Yorkshire, is steeped in cricketing history with the first recorded match between Burton Leonard and Knaresborough in 1796 and the current Nidderdale Amateur Cricket League dating back to 1894. Currently that league boasts nearly 100 amateur teams, one of the biggest in the world.
The 2010 Festival will be played in many of the towns and villages throughout the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, centred on Harrogate.
The most famous cricketing son from Harrogate was Herbert Sutcliffe, who scored 151 first class centuries in his career and is ranked fifth highest of all time in his test average.
The Golden Oldies World Secretariat said they were delighted to stage the 2010 Festival in such a beautiful and historic cricket region.
“Golden Oldies sport is about fun, friendship and fraternity. A key in staging our Festivals is a location that can achieve these things,” said Paul Tibbutt from the Golden Oldies World Secretariat.
“This is a wonderful cricket area – and will be somewhat of a cricketing pilgrimage for the Golden Oldies fraternity. The Golden Oldies will get to play in some beautiful, historic villages scattered around the Yorkshire Dales. Virtually every village boasts a stunning cricket ground.”
The Festival Chairman is Sir Thomas Ingilby, who is President of the Nidderdale Cricket League and well-known as the baronet of Ripley Castle, which has been in the family for 700 years.
The first Golden Oldies World Cricket Festival was held in Auckland in 1984, attracting 34 teams. It has grown from that point with 12 highly successful Cricket Festivals staged in some of the world's nicest destinations including Brighton, Brisbane, Vancouver, Christchurch, Birmingham, Sydney, Cape Town, Rotorua, Mooloolaba, Sri Lanka and next month in Queenstown.
For further information contact:
Paul Tibbutt, Golden Oldies World Secretariat,
Phone: +64 9 336 2653