by Mayukh Ghosh
In the 1979 edition of Wisden, Ron Yeomans wrote on the Cricket Society movement.
Only a few lines were devoted to the Southern Cricket Societies.
The rest was all on the societies in the north of England.
The very next year, editor Norman Preston wrote a short note to convince everyone that Yeomans' article was not biased and the Southern Societies were equally important.
It will never be known how convincing his effort was but people knew what made the north special.
It all started in September 1951. A small group of cricket loving friends and followers gathered together to welcome and listen to stories of a local cricketer named Johnny Wardle.
There and then the Wombwell Cricket Lovers' Society was born.
Wardle managed to rope in Fred Trueman as the speaker next year and there was no looking back.
In his 1954 book 'Gods or Flannelled Fools', R.S. Whitington wrote, " Wombwell has originated a kind of cricketing community that deserves to be reproduced all over the cricketing world so as to preserve the British people's love of cricket for centuries."
And then there was one Jack Sokell. Cricket has its Arthur Haygarths and David Friths but Sokell was one of a kind.
Speaker evenings, quiz nights ( the wizard Tony Woodhouse as the quizmaster), buffets and award presentations, dinners, Christmas lunches, big-band dances, youth coaching,.....
All managed by that one man named Jack Sokell.
He single-handedly made Wombwell the best cricket society in the world.
But there's one slightly embarrassing Sokell story which is quiz-question material:
During the early years, Sokell struggled to find bands for the dance nights.
On one occasion, he had an initial meeting with a new band and they agreed to make an appearance at Wombwell.
The fee was £100.
Everyone including Sokell thought that it was too high for a group that no one had heard of.
The plan was cancelled.
A few weeks later, that group started creating news.
They continued doing so for many years.
Sokell, till his last day, believed that it was he who discovered 'The Beatles'!
Wombwell Cricket Lovers' Society is now 68 years old.
In this age of 'googling' and click-bait headlines, it is nigh impossible to find a Jack Sokell.
Wombwell will remain one of a kind.
P.S. "My song shall be cricket and cricket my theme" is the anthem the society embraced way back in the 1950s.