2008 News
Thursday July 2008 - Amazing Response to the Air New Zealand 2010 International Golden Oldies Festival
Since the decision to award the 2010 Air New Zealand International Golden Oldies Cricket Festival to Harrogate and the Nidderdale League was published in February, there has, according to Air New Zealand’s Paul Tibbutt, been an unprecedented rush by teams wanting to book themselves in. Five teams had already booked before the previous festival, held in Queenstown, Otago, had even started started and 17 teams from five different countries have now declared their participation. They include: From Australia: The CBC Golden Oldies, the Gentlemen of Nowra, Kookaburra Cricket Club, Newcastle Lords Taverners, the Brookfield Brumbies and Brookfield Colts, the Australian Cricket Society from Victoria, the Townsville Old Crocs from Northern Territory and Capetown Perth, a team of South African émigrés who live in Perth – Barry Richards is a member. From Canada: the British Columbia Golden Oldies. From New Zealand: The Auckland Cricket Society, the Onehunga Mallers and the Central Otago Cavaliers. From Britain: The Cuckfield Golden Oldies (West Sussex). From South Africa: The Golden Bulls, the Vagabonds and the Willows. The 17 teams have so far registered 337 cricketers, so the festival is off to an excellent start with just over two years to go before a ball is bowled.
There has been a huge amount of interest from clubs outside the Nidderdale League who are keen to get involved by hosting pre-festival warm up matches or festival matches: these include the Olicanians who have a beautiful ground at Denton Road, Ilkley, Bishopthorpe CC, whose ground is within a stone’s throw of Bishopthorpe Palace, Spofforth CC and the Yorkshire Gentlemen, whose beautiful ground and facilities at Escrick Park is bound to prove popular. We have also been offered the use of the cricket pitch on the front lawn at Swinton Park, Masham – a stunning country house setting for any game – and the lovely school grounds and facilities at Aysgarth (Newton le Willows) and Cundall Manor. Nidderdale League clubs who have offered their grounds so far include Boroughbridge, Bolton Abbey, Burnt Yates, Goldsborough, Masham, Newby Hall, North Stainley, Ripley and Sharow. With 70-80 overseas teams expected to book in for the festival, many more grounds will be needed to host three international matches, on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the week commencing 9th August 2010. To register your interest, please email sirthomas@ripleycastle.co.uk. Clubs will be well paid for preparing the wickets and for the lunch and refreshments: more details shortly. For those wishing to form or enter teams and take on all these Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans, see www.goldenoldiessports.com: package prices will be announced very shortly.
Nidderdale has never seen anything like this festival and the economic benefit to Harrogate – which is providing the majority of the accommodation – and the Nidderdale League area is likely to be considerable – in the region of £750k. It’s also going to be tremendous fun, with 1500 international cricketers, all of them aged over 40 and more than a few of them from Down Under, in the district for a week.