IN THE BEGINNING

In March 1912 a meeting was held at Alfred Rushton's house in Oak Street, Newton to discuss the formation of a new cricket club. The outcome of that meeting was that Newton Cricket Club was formed, with immediate effect.

The original members were messrs

• Alfred Rushton,
• Arthur Marsland,
• Joshua Holland,
• Samuel Hudson,
• Herbert Beard,
• Charles Garlick,
• Fred Oldham,
• Fred Beeson,
• Thomas Kershaw,
• James Robinson,
• George Brady,
• Alfred Hitchcock, J
• ames Bottomley,
• Fred Wild,
• Jesse Robinson,
• Bill RobinsonJ
• oseph Bradshaw.

From these 17 men good and true, Alfred Rushton was appointed president, a position he was to hold for over 40 years, Arthur Marsland was appointed secretary, Joshua Holland, treasurer and Fred Beeson our first Chairman. Their first act was to secure a ground on which to play and a deal was struck with a local farmer at the princely rate of £2.00 per year to rent a field that was opposite the gates of Hyde County Grammar School on Clarendon Road, Hyde. The wicket at that time followed the natural slope of Clarendon Road with two parts of the outfield having an approximate one in ten incline. A brand new, complete pavilion was also purchased using the money that the Rushton family were saving for their daughter's new piano and was positioned at the Oak Street end of the ground. Initially during the summers 1912, 1913 and 1914 only friendlies were played with an amazing amount of local cricket clubs involved, there were some 8 clubs in the Newton area alone and notable clubs that fixtures were played against include Hyde 3rd team, Hope Congos 3rd team, Flowery Field 3rd team, Woodley Primitive Methodists, Norbury Church, Hyde St Andrews, Matley and Slack Mills. Unfortunately local cricket was suspended until the summer of 1919 due to the 1st World War, which fortunately did not have any members of Newton Cricket Club amongst its many millions of casualties and once the war was declared at an end, the pitch was completely excavated by hand and levelled and so the 1919 season began on a platform wicket which was initially only some 10 yards wide but was described as the best in the area. Such a narrow pitch was a challenge to maintain and was achieved by replacing any damaged turf with 4 inch cut pieces from adjoining fields which were rolled and watered during the week leaving a pitch for the weekend that played remarkably well. It can however be noted that not one score of over 100 is recorded in the archives during this time. As is now, all the repairs and improvements to the ground and the pavilion were carried out by the players and their families, what is different however is that the tea was made at the Rushton household in Oak Street and carried across at the interval. In 1919 we played our first games against Newton Mill, who were our local and sometimes bitter rivals; mainly because they liked to poach some of our better players. At this time a local youngster called John Leonard Hopwood (known as Len) who lived in Fleet Street, Newton would regularly practice with Newton, and it‟s clear that those early practice sessions were working as Leonard went on to play for both Lancashire and England. Leonard was a talented all-rounder who played two Test matches for England making his Test debut on 6 July 1934 against Australia at Old Trafford. He would later give up his time to present trophies at future annual dinners.