Gideon Holgate

Gideon Holgate was a first class cricketer who played matches for Yorkshire County Cricket Club and for Lancashire County Cricket Club between 1865 and 1867. Though there are many players who have done this, Holgate is unusual because he played for both rivals in two consecutive seasons.

He was born on June 23, 1839 in Sawley, Barnoldswick, Yorkshire and died on July 11, 1895 in Accrington, Lancashire.

A wicket keeper, standing just over 5ft.7 inches tall and weighing 11 stone, he took 24 catches and completed 10 stumpings. He scored 455 runs as a right handed middle order batsman at an average of 13.78 with a top score of 65 against Surrey CCC.

A professional, his first match for Lancashire was the County Club's second ever game against Birkenhead Park, at Birkenhead, on the 15th and 16th July 1864. Batting at number 10 he scored 10 and a duck, took a catch and made a stumping. The following year he was playing for Yorkshire, and was reputed to be something of a ring leader in the various disputes and strikes which afflicted Yorkshire even then. In 1866 he played for both counties, as he did in the following year when he played for Lancashire against Yorkshire on 20th-22nd June at Whalley, in the first Roses Match. By September in the third match between the two counties, at Middlesbrough, he was playing for Yorkshire!

He played for both counties again the following year, and in 1868 took a season playing for the United England Eleven, playing against local twenty-twos, and in other matches against odds.

He played for the Accrington Club and was one of that Club's early captains. His grandson, also Gideon, was secretary of the Lancashire Cricket League from February 1935 until his death, at his home in Clitheroe, on 16th November 1949.

References

* [http://content-www.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/14895.html Cricinfo Profile]

* [http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/30/30320/30320.html Cricket Archive Statistics]