Founded: 1903

Club Honours: Two-times Lincs League winners

Leagues played in: Lincolnshire League, Lincoln League, West Wold Evening League, Page Nelson Youth League

Website: http://owmby.play-cricket.com

PT140505arran6

 

(Photograph courtesy of Scunthorpe Telegraph)

By Ann Boulton (taken from Lincolnshire Life magazine)

In 1903 a group of local farmers from Owmby and the neighbouring village of Normanby got together to form a cricket team. Their pitch was at that time only approached by footpaths over the fields and before the game could start, the players would have to drive the sheep and cattle off the ground and shovel up what the animals had left behind!

The ground, Todmoor, was part of a farm, and from 1929 the new owner Ernest Burkitt played for the village. The team traveled to early away games in carts. From the 1940s until the 1960s, no more than four “outsiders” were allowed into the team, the remainder being required to live in the village.

The club joined the Burton Hunt League after World War Two, and later joined the Lincolnshire County Cricket League. The old wooden hut, surrounded with barbed wire to ward off marauding sheep and cattle, had by then been replaced with everyone’s idea of the perfect country cricket pavilion – a white painted building, complete with verandah and flower borders.

For the past 50 years, the mainstays of the club have been the Crowe family who, with the Burkitts, now boast four generations of Owmby players. Percy Crowe played with Ernest Burkitt, while John Burkitt and Michael and Nick Crowe were all members of the team in the mid-20th century. Finally Michael and John’s sons Robert and Andrew became heavily involved with the club, as did their respective sons, William and Sam.

The club has won the Lincolnshire League twice and the second win earned them promotion to the county’s highest level (ECB Premier League). Owmby’s 2nd XI plays in the Lincoln League Premier Division and the club fields a mid-week side in the West Wold Evening League.  And at junior level, under-15 and under-13 sides play in the Page Nelson Youth League.