Our club was a touring club especially in the twenties and thirties when virtually every year we travelled to England or Scotland and almost made it to Denmark one year. These trips were organised by William Andrews aka Mr. Willie or in later years, The Dodger.
Numerous letters found their way to and from Secretaries of a multitude of clubs arranging fixtures for the forthcoming season. The frequency, accuracy and intimacy of the written hand almost puts WhatsApp and our other ‘vital’ social media apps to shame.
1924 saw North Down CC play Lancaster, Lytham, Blackpool, Leyland and Preston CC on five consecutive days from the 29th July through to the 2nd of August.
North Down regularly requested an early start so that the team could get back to the big city of Blackpool for evening entertainment. Unfortunately for them the opposition regularly couldn’t start before 11.30am.
Booking the Steamer and trains from Belfast was left with WA negotiating with Robert Murphy and Mr. Yiend
In a kind of reverse order the members were officially given details of the tour on the 15th July thus…
All we needed in the meantime was the list of the tourists and their appointed accommodation on board and of course if there were any concessions or deals to be had.
Murphy and Yiend in their correspondence with Big Willie wished the team all the best in their Senior Challenge Cup final before departing for England and what a nail biter it was with North Down winning by 1 wicket against Waringstown.
Of the winning team RJE Cadogan, AE Anderson, CE Bebe, B. Hill, J Dearden, Jas. Macdonald, the Professional JW Kingston and captain Willie Andrews made the Tour.
The bowling force came from Cadogan, Hill and Macdonald and the runs generally in this tour from Macdonald, Anderson and Andrews.