News Blog

11th March 2026

The mother of Jane Wells

In The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents, I note that my own great (x2) grandparents were George Rigg (1802-1865) and his wife Jane (née Wells, 1807-1886) and that they had 8 children, the youngest of whom (Henry Rigg, 1847-1920) was my great grandfather.

In a cell in Table 1.1 on page 18 of the book, I record that Jane Wells’s parents were Edward Wells (1767-1808) and Sarah Croft (born 1764). However, following further research, I have come across information that indicates that this pairing should be Edward Wells (1767-1831) and his wife Ann (née Ashton, born 1763).

This amendment does not affect any of the other details presented in the book’s numerous branches of the family tree. Nor does it cut across the impressively meticulous research that I was pleased to report a contributor to the Ancestry public pages – David Pratt – has undertaken in recording the direct line from Jane Wells back through eight generations to Robert Welles, who was born in Galphay, near Ripon, in about 1516.

Edward Wells and Ann Ashton were married in East Witton, North Yorkshire, in 1787. Edward – a labourer – signed the marriage certificate with his mark; Ann gave her name in neat handwriting (and without the ‘e’ that appears in some of the transcripts of her official records).

Their respective places of birth were approximately 25 miles apart and, as will be seen, this turns out to be a potentially complicating factor in the family story that follows. Edward – the son of Edward Wells (born 1727) and Mary Bilton (born 1732) – was born in the village of Cundall, near Dishforth. Ann was born in Middleham – a couple of miles from Leyburn – the daughter of George and Alison Ashton.

The main Ancestry source that has provided me with information on the family of Edward and Ann Wells is York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, which has been compiled from Anglican Parish Registers held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives in York. This shows that Jane Wells – the future wife of George Rigg – was born in November 1807 and baptised in February 1808 in the parish of Brafferton; Edward and Ann Wells are named as her parents. According to the same source, Jane had two sisters: Elizabeth Wells was baptised in Brafferton in June 1799 and Ann Wells in Cundall in December 1796. In the later Census records, Jane’s place of birth is given as Helperby. (Helperby and Brafferton are adjacent villages; Cundall is about two miles away).

I have not ruled out the possibility that Jane Wells also had a brother – William – who was born in either Middleham (as noted, also the birthplace of Ann Ashton) in 1788 or in Leyburn (which is only a couple of miles from Middleham) in 1796. The efforts I have undertaken thus far on William have been extensive – but also inconclusive – and present a good example of the frustrating “rabbit holes” that lie in wait for this type of research. Further work is required.

The trail of Elizabeth Wells – one of Jane’s sisters – is also hard to discern. The available databases do not suggest any obvious marriage leads to follow up. In the event that she remained unmarried, there is a death recorded for Elizabeth Wells in Kirklington in 1871 at the age of 71 (which would be consistent with her year of birth of 1799), but I am fairly certain that this is the former Elizabeth Harker from Constable Burton near Leyburn, who had married another William Wells (no relation) in 1823.

The descendants of Ann Wells

More positively, I am on firmer ground in the case of Jane Wells’s other sister, Ann. Accordingly, as The Line of Sixteen does not contain any discussion of Jane’s siblings, it is opportune here to expand the discussion of this part of the extended family tree.

Ann Wells married George Walker, a labourer from Cockfield in County Durham, in the parish of Topcliffe in 1823. Both signed the marriage certificate with a cross. Their elder son – also George – was born in Baldersby the following year. At the time of the 1841 Census, George and Ann Walker were still in Baldersby (recorded as 40 year-olds) with George’s occupation given as agricultural labourer and with another son, the 9 year-old Robert. (Ann’s sister lived next door, as that was the residence of George and Jane Rigg with 6 of their children). Ann remained in Baldersby for the rest of her life, dying in 1858 at the age of 61.

Between them, the two brothers – the younger George Walker (with his wife Elizabeth Lambert) and Robert Walker (with his wife Dorothy Ann Johnson) – had 11 children and it is the tracking of the subsequent generations that has provided me with a significant new outcrop of the extended family tree. George and Robert Walker were first cousins of my great grandfather – Henry Rigg – and I shall use them as my reference points in the discussion that follows. Their great grandchildren (whose homes ranged from Durham and Yorkshire to Ontario and California) were my 4th cousins. To date, I have tracked 150 family members (including spouses) over 7 generations from Ann Wells.

In 1851 – 10 years on from being recorded as an agricultural labourer – George and Robert’s father – George – was a 51 year-old “tanner, journeyman” in Baldersby. This occupation features significantly in several branches of the family – and for some as employers, not just workers. The younger George Walker established George Walker & Son in 1861 and, in 1881, is recorded as providing “employment for men and 2 boys” in Egglescliffe in County Durham.

This was only the start. One of George’s sons – John Walker (1856-1918) – incorporated Walker’s Tanneries Ltd as a private limited company in 1907 by which time he was firmly part of the North Yorkshire establishment: a member of the Northallerton Urban Council and a Justice of the Peace. John Walker became Governing Director of the company in 1914 with his sons – John and Frank – as Directors. On his death, the older John Walker’s effects totalled over £37,000 – the equivalent of £2.75 million today, according to Office for National Statistics data.

Many of the themes identified in The Line of Sixteen can be seen in the branches of the family tree that emanate from Ann Wells. One such is the dichotomy between the families that stayed in one locality for several generations and those who migrated overseas. The former include the Graves/Gill family that has lived in the southern part of County Durham for at least 5 generations and the 4 generations of the Walburn family in Northallerton. By contrast, it was Frederick Walker (1863-1937, a son of Robert) who took his skills as a blacksmith (together with his wife, Lilian, and their two surviving children) from Wetherby in Yorkshire to Preston in Ontario, Canada in 1911. Likewise, a grandson of George – Benjamin Howson Walker (1890-1947) – worked as a mining engineer and later a teacher in South Africa.

It is one of George Walker’s great grandchildren – William Arthur Walker – who provides us with another of The Line of Sixteen’s themes. He was a 24 year-old pilot officer with the Royal Canadian Airforce when he was killed in action in 1944. He is commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Memorial in Singapore. Previously, George’s brother Robert had lost a grandson in the First World War, when Herbert Walburn, a 33 year-old sapper in the Royal Engineers – and formerly a bricklayer in Northallerton – died in France in 1918. His commemoration is at the Loos Memorial at the Dud Corner Cemetery in Nord-Pas-De-Calais.

If and when The Line of Sixteen is updated and reprinted, William Arthur Walker and Herbert Walburn will be added to the Roll of Honour, which is given in Annex 4 of the book.

11th November 2025

The game was one of unremitting ferocity, notwithstanding the stern discipline imposed by the referee, Eric Clay of Leeds, who sent off two Australians and the British prop, Cliff Watson. I remember sitting in the stand and being overawed – and, it has to be said, somewhat frightened – by the violence of grown men.

I have been here before. The quotation above forms the introduction to the last of the essays – “Elite Sportsmen at the Top of Their Game”, which covered the England-Australia rugby league international played at the London Stadium in a Four Nations Competition in November 2016 – in Still An Ordinary Spectator: Five More Years of Watching Sport (2017). The quotation itself refers to another match – Great Britain versus Australia at Headingley in November 1963 – to which I was taken when I was 9 years old and which is described in the opening chapter of An Ordinary Spectator: 50 Years of Watching Sport (2012).

A concept that has appeared occasionally in my writings on sports spectating over the years has been that of the “echo”: a low key reference to a character – or an incident or a place or a particular set of circumstances – that is subsequently revealed to have been of some significance or which involves a later recurrence of the action.

In 1963, the Great Britain-Australia encounter at Headingley was the third of a three-match Ashes test series, the Australians having won the first two matches (at Wembley and Swinton), in the latter scoring 12 (3-point) tries and registering a half-century of points. Last Saturday, I attended the third test of the 2025 series, played at Headingley, with Australia having won the first two games, this time at Wembley and the new Hill Dickinson stadium at Everton.

An “echo”, therefore, played out over a period of 60-plus years?

Perhaps – though I have to concede that there are differences in the respective sets of circumstances. In 1963, Australia regained the Ashes that they had lost in 1956 and Great Britain retained in the three following series, including in Australia in 1958 and 1962. By contrast, Australia came into the 2025 series having been in possession of the Ashes since 1973. (Great Britain’s last series win was in 1970, after which Australia won either 2-1 or 3-0 in the 13 subsequent series up to and including 2003, the last three-match contest prior to this year).

Following the thrashing at Swinton in 1963, the Great Britain selectors were in a position to transform the side for the Headingley match. They duly did so: there were no fewer than 10 changes to the 13-man team (in those pre-“interchange” days) with 7 players being awarded their first caps. It did the trick. The home side scored 4 tries – by debutants Geoff Smith, Johnny Ward and Don Fox and the Swinton winger John Stopford – with 2 goals from Fox completing a 16-5 win to avoid the whitewash.

For last Saturday’s game, the scope for the England coach – Shaun Wane – to radically change his personnel was more limited. He had announced a 24-man squad to contest the three matches and it was highly unlikely that he would look outside this group for additional resources. His 17-man selection at Headingley (including the 4 interchanges) showed only two changes from the corresponding group at Everton.

This suggested to me – and no doubt to other pundits (amateur and professional) – that whilst England would be likely to repeat their highly committed and effective defensive performance of the previous game, there was little to suggest that there would be a significant improvement in their attacking shape. This had been disappointingly pedestrian and unimaginative in the first two games, albeit confronted by an outstanding Australian defence.

As for Australia, a relevant question might have been: how would they perform having already fulfilled their principal objective of securing the Ashes? Would they take their foot off the gas and start thinking of home? Or would they feel relieved of the immediate pressures and release the potent attacking threat that had been seen only intermittently in the previous two matches? It was a redundant question, of course. These are professional athletes representing their country on the biggest international stage.

Both sides warmed up on the pitch for about 20 minutes in the autumnal sunshine, the Australians directly in front of my prime location in the North Stand about 25 metres from the try-line at the western end of the ground. Their preparations were done with intensity: the passing drills at speed, the forward rushes with uncompromising vigour, the kicking skills of half-backs Nathan Cleary and Cameron Munster with careful precision. I watched the latter spend a good five minutes practicing taking a series of passes and then, from the instep of his right boot, arching a number of curving grubber kicks over the opponents’ try-line.

England did not get the start they had wanted. The outstanding Australian hooker, Harry Grant, immediately made a surging run downfield from acting half-back. Shortly afterwards, the England winger Joe Burgess lost the ball in the tackle and then a superb looping pass from Munster exposed a badly organised English defence to create a try in the corner for Josh Addo-Carr. Cleary converted from the touchline: 6-0 to Australia after five minutes.

The second Australian try came after 25 minutes. The ball was moved from left to right in the England 20-metre zone. Munster took the pass and arched a curving right-footed grubber kick towards the England try-line. His second-row colleague Hudson Young – showing far greater commitment to the cause than the last line of England’s defence – arrived to dive on the ball and claim the try.

There is a famous quote, usually attributed to the golfer Gary Player: “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”. Munster had practiced his kick for a few minutes before the kick-off – and, no doubt, for many hours in many training sessions before that. I was back to the theme of my 2016 essay – the admiration of elite sportsmen at the top of their game.

England needed a response and it was brilliantly provided by Jez Litten – arguably their best player over the series – who, replicating Harry’s Grant’s earlier effort, made his own long break down the centre of the field before launching a perfectly judged kick for his captain George Williams to gather and score. Harry Smith’s conversion and a subsequent penalty on the stroke of half-time meant that the interval score showed only a 4-point margin – 8-12 – with all to play for.

The decisive period of the match was shortly after half-time. For what must have been a good 10 minutes, it seemed that virtually all of the play took place within the Australian 20-metre zone, where England – roared on by the capacity crowd – had a series of play-the-balls: at one stage they had three sets of tackles back-to-back. But, not for the first time in the series, the lack of creativity in their attacking options – combined with the disciplined resolution of the Australian defensive structure – was exposed. The opportunity passed and the play moved back downfield. When, with a quarter of an hour to go, the Australians had possession in front of the England posts, the alert Grant duly shot through a gap between two defenders and stretched his ball-carrying arm over the line for what we knew would turn out to be the matching-deciding try.

The echo of 1963 was not, therefore, to be fully sounded. There would be no home win on this occasion, but instead a repetition of another 3rd Ashes test at Headingly: that of 1982, when Max Krilich’s famous “Invincibles” side broke out in the closing stages of a previously tight game to secure a 32-8 win. On Saturday, it was almost the same: two Reece Walsh tries with the Cleary conversions took the final score to 30-8 in the Australians’ favour.

And so Australia have taken the series 3-0. I think that is what most pundits would have predicted before the first match kicked off. The sport is wealthier in Australia; on the field – in the National Rugby League – it is consistently played with a higher intensity and skill level than seen in the domestic Super League; off the field, it is administered with far greater clarity and purpose. What the “solutions” might be to the current – longstanding – gulf that exists between the two hemispheres will no doubt be the subject of much further debate within English rugby league. But let us not regard the outcome of this series as a “wake-up call”: the disparity has been evident for a very long time.

Finally, an observation on how the world around us has changed in the 60-plus years represented by this echo. I still have the tickets that my father, uncle and I had for the game in 1963: twelve shillings and six pence (62½p) each for seats in the North Stand with one shilling (5p) for the match programme. The corresponding costs in 2025 were £60 (plus a £1 administrative fee) – in the same (impressively modernised) stand – and £10. Such is the nature of our times. And – for the avoidance of doubt – it was great value for money.

23rd October 2025

The second of my blogs following up the August Test match between England and India at the Kia Oval reflects on the issue of substitutes in cricket (and some other sports).

The England seam bowler, Chris Woakes, dislocated his left shoulder when diving in the attempt to prevent the ball crossing the boundary during the Indian first innings. His injury meant that he could not take any further part in the match, apart from a short innings at its climax when he courageously took to the crease with his arm in a sling underneath his sweater. My earlier blog discussed the risks attached to this.

There has been some interesting comment on social media about the effect of Woakes’s absence on the Test and on the series as a whole. He was effectively missing for 3½ of the four innings of a game which India won by six runs. A counterfactual argument is that, had he been fit throughout, England would have prevailed – with, as a result, the home side winning the series 3-1 rather than settling for the 2-2 draw. (I have to say that, even in this example, I believe the case for the different outcome to be not proven; by definition, we simply don’t know how the conflict between bat and ball would have been resolved in the alternative scenario).

On balance, I would judge that the social media commentators generally favour cricket’s substitution rule as it currently stands in Test matches: that is, with substitutes allowed to field or keep wicket, but not bat or bowl, apart from covering injuries that are concussive.

For what it’s worth, I am also in this camp, although – as noted below – there is at least one glaring anomaly. However, rather than discuss the pros and cons of extending the grounds for more active substitutions, I shall examine what has happened in one or two other sports in order to ascertain what might have described as the direction of travel regarding the future of cricket substitutes.

Before doing so, a couple of other things, beginning with the anomaly. In the first innings of the Lord’s test match against New Zealand in 2022, the England spin bowler Jack Leach chased a ball to the Pavilion boundary and injured himself in his diving attempt to prevent the four being registered. For all intents and purposes, the cause of his injury was identical to that of Chris Woakes: a misjudged forward dive at full speed at the boundary’s edge whilst attempting to parry the ball back with the hand.

However, the outcome was different. Leach was found to have suffered a concussion. And the result of that was that, whilst he was ruled out of the remainder of the match, England were permitted to play a like-for-like replacement – Matt Parkinson – who bowled 15 overs and took one wicket in the New Zealand second innings. (An unbeaten Joe Root century steered England to victory by five wickets).

The second aside concerns the causes of the Leach and Woakes injuries. Whilst acknowledging their wholehearted commitment to their team’s cause – and recognising that every run saved might be crucial in determining the final outcome of the match – it is also the case that their injuries were self-inflicted when misjudging some part of the required acrobatics when they had a (very) outside chance of preventing the boundary.

In some regards, it is surprising that these injuries do not happen more often. For many fielders, it now seems to be de rigour that there should be a forlorn dive across the boundary rope (or whatever marks the boundary) even when it is perfectly obvious that the ball cannot be overhauled.

I have discussed this with a good friend, whose interest in cricket has extended from earlier than even my 60-plus years. “Something mistakenly macho” is the telling phrase that he used to describe the frequency with which players dive towards the boundary rope, rather than conceding the four runs as the inevitable outcome, as if not to do so would somehow constitute “chickening out”. In these cases, there is no chance of preventing the boundary, but a 100 per cent guarantee of a higher dry-cleaning bill and an “X” per cent chance of sustaining injury.

And so what of the future role of cricket substitutes? I wonder if a little history from elsewhere might be instructive.

In football, the employment of substitutes occurred – unofficially, without formal sanction – in many countries in the inter-war period. However, it was not until the 1965-66 season that they were permitted in English League Football: one per side and only to replace an injured player. Tellingly, two years later, the latter condition was relaxed to allow substitution for tactical reasons. (The first FIFA World Cup finals in which they were used were in Mexico in 1970). As from the 2024-25 season, Premier League teams have been allowed to name 9 substitutes, of whom 5 can be used.

The history of rugby league has many examples of depleted teams holding out against the odds, most famously the Northern Union side in the “Rorke’s Drift” Test match against Australia in Sydney in 1914, in which the visitors were at one stage down to 9 men from the original 13. (They won 14-6 to secure the Ashes). I can recall, from when I started watching the sport in the early 1960s, that it was customary, if at all possible, for injured players to hobble about on the wing to maintain their side’s numbers. Slightly before my time, the tourists’ captain, Alan Prescott, played all but 3 minutes of the Australia-Great Britain test match in Brisbane in 1958 with a broken arm (another GB win, 25-18).

These types of mad heroics were made less likely when substitutes were first permitted in senior rugby league matches in the 1964-65 season. Teams were allowed to replace two injured players in the first half, though the requirement for the player to be injured was abolished a year later. The modern rules – as set out in the 2024 Rugby League International Laws of the Game – are considerably different. Each team may have up to 4 replacements with a maximum of 8 “interchanges” allowed from the 17 named players.

As so often the case, the rugby union authorities followed their league counterparts with a lag. The laws were changed in 1968 for “matches in which a national representative team is playing” in which no more than two players could be replaced “only when, in the opinion of a medical practitioner, the player is so injured that he should not continue playing in the match”. In the same year, Barry John’s replacement by Mike Gibson in the first South Africa vs British Lions Test in Pretoria was the first such occurrence. The introduction of a replacement as a tactical substitute was not formally permitted until 1996.

These days, international rugby union is a game of 23-a-side as it is the norm for most (or indeed all) of the 8 available replacements to feature at some time in the second half of matches. This has produced some new forms of tactical thinking, as illustrated by the South Africans’ current propensity to employ a 6-2 (or even 7-1) division in the forwards/backs components of their replacements’ bench in order maintain the immense physicality on which their rugby strategy is based throughout the full 80 minutes.

These are different sports to cricket, of course. Nonetheless, if one is searching for pointers for the future of cricket substitutions – albeit most likely over the long term – I think there are two clear indicators.

First, it is very difficult to restrict the criteria than permit the use of substitutions. Mission-creep is all but inevitable over time. In all three of the other sports noted here, the restriction of allowing substitutes only for injuries was abolished – in the cases of football and rugby league very quickly – when it was evident that this condition was being abused through the feigning of injury by players (no doubt prompted by coaches and managers). At present, Test match cricket is holding the line with regard to concussion-related (only) injury and this is something that can probably be safeguarded through the use of technical medical examination. Other types of injury – a fast bowler supposedly straining a groin after bowling 6 overs at 90 mph with a like-for-like replacement waiting in the wings – would be more difficult to police.

Second, it is clear that the number of permitted substitutes tends to rise over time: from 1 to 8 in rugby union and (effectively via the interchange) in rugby league and from 1 to 5 in football. There are various factors at work here including the desire of sports authorities to maintain the speed of their games throughout their full duration as well as the need to safeguard players’ welfare when they might otherwise have been obliged to remain on the field when carrying injuries. (All three of the other sports also allow an additional substitution/replacement – for both sides – if a player has to permanently leave the field due to concussion).

Finally, reverting back to cricket, is there a straw in the wind evident in the some of the regulatory changes that have been recently introduced?

Earlier this month, Cricket Australia announced that, in the first five rounds of the current Sheffield Shield competition, teams will be able to replace a player if he sustains an injury or becomes unwell before, during or after play up to the close of play on day two. This would be at the referee’s discretion, the substitution must be like-for-like (such as a bowler for a bowler) and the opposing side would also be able to make a substitution. This followed a trial in the domestic red-ball competition in India earlier this year, though that was limited to injuries sustained on the field that were external, for example a deep cut or fracture rather than a muscle strain.

For the traditionalist, the more worrying development has been the Indian Premier League (IPL)’s “Impact Player rule”, introduced in 2023, which allows for changes that are purely tactical by permitting one substitute player per team (from 5 who are named beforehand) to play an active part in matches with bat or ball. Rather bizarrely, if a bowler, the Impact Player is allowed to bowl his full quota of four overs, irrespective of the number of overs bowled by the player he is replacing.

At present, the Impact Player rule only applies to the T20 format used in the IPL. It is still some distance from the first-class game, including Test cricket. Speaking for myself, I hope it remains there.

10th August 2025

The 5th Test match between England and India at the Kia Oval, which finished last Monday, resulted in a victory for the visitors by 6 runs, which enabled them to draw the series 2-2.

The subsequent reporting by the mainstream media and on the social networks has covered a number of themes: the enthralling nature of the whole series; the ill-advised shot that brought about the dismissal of the centurion Harry Brook (when England were 301 for 3 and needing only another 73 runs to win the match) and gave a seemingly beaten Indian side the opportunity to rescue a lost cause; the courage of Chris Woakes in coming out to bat as England’s number 11 following his shoulder dislocation in India’s first innings; the validity (or not) of extending the regulations governing the use of substitutes in cricket matches.

I shall offer some views on the last two of these issues, beginning here with the Woakes innings and following this up, later, on the future use of substitutes.

Chris Woakes received a standing ovation from the capacity crowd when he came out to join Gus Atkinson with England requiring 17 runs to win. In the BBC commentary box, Michael Vaughan referred to apparently similar previous occasions involving Saleem Malik and Malcolm Marshall, though he omitted perhaps the most famous near-precedent, when Colin Cowdrey walked out with his broken arm in plaster at the end of the Lord’s Test match against the West Indies in 1963. (I was present when Marshall batted one-handed with his broken left thumb in plaster at Headingley in 1984. He went on to take seven wickets in the England’s second innings to set up a comfortable West Indies win).

I have to admit that – along with, I suspect, most other observers at the ground or on television – I found Woakes’s walk down the pavilion steps and on to the ground a moving piece of sports theatre. Although I still think this, further reflection suggests that a more nuanced perspective is required. In particular…

… how does it stand with the duty of care that sits amongst the responsibilities of the match officials and the England management?

There was a fundamental difference between the Woakes innings and the three historical cases noted above. He came out to bat with his left arm in a sling under his sweater. The room for manoeuvre in his upper body was therefore much more restricted than for the other cases, in none of which was a sling worn. Moreover, Cowdrey had been guaranteed not to face a delivery, as he replaced Derek Shackleton (who had been run out at the non-striker’s end) knowing that only two deliveries remained in the match. It had been left to David Allen to safely negotiate those (from the great Wes Hall) so that the game could end in a draw with England nine wickets down.

Malcolm Marshall did face 8 deliveries, one of which he slashed over gulley for four. He batted one-handed – and, as usual, right-handed – opening up his stance and taking care to stretch his left hand out behind him to keep it away from danger. Saleem Malik adopted a similar approach – his lower left arm in plaster, though still in the firing line – when making three runs from 14 deliveries for Pakistan against the West Indies in Faisalabad in 1986.

Like Cowdrey, Woakes did not face a delivery during the time that he was at the crease, as he was at the non-striking end on arriving in the middle and he and Atkinson then ran singles off the last balls of two overs from the Indian seam bowlers, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna. (The batsmen also ran for a two, when it was clear that even scampering between the wickets was the cause of considerable pain for Woakes). Atkinson was bowled by Siraj off the first ball of the following over to give India the victory.

The key point here is that the circumstances could have arisen in which Chris Woakes would have had to face the bowling. What would have happened then? I assume that Woakes would have batted left-handed (and, of course, one-handed) to shield his injured left shoulder. Potentially facing Siraj, bowling in the high 80s mph.

The Indians would have been placed in an impossible situation that was none of their making. What was the captain, Shubman Gill, to do – bowl his spinner? He was under no obligation to do so, of course, and it is highly unlikely that that would have occurred. What would have happened if Siraj had bowled at full pace and hit Woakes on the injured shoulder or – the batsman’s stance at the crease being unfamiliar as well as painful – on the helmet?

Woakes has subsequently stated that he “never considered not going out there” as the test match approached its dramatic conclusion and one has to admire his display of courage. However, in circumstances such as this, it is surely the case that the individual is not necessarily the best person to make a judgement about his own interests. Indeed, Stephan Shemilt’s online report on the BBC states that Woakes had offered to bat in England’s first innings, only to be knocked back by the coach, Brendon McCullum.

I know that a great deal of sport – especially at the elite-level – involves danger: boxing, Formula 1, rugby, horse racing, ski-jumping et al. And, of course, the game of cricket also has its risks – to state the blindingly obvious, it is played at relatively close quarters with a hard ball – though these have been reduced in the years since (the helmet-less) Brian Close faced up to Michael Holding in the Old Trafford gloom of a Saturday evening in 1976 and only avoided serious injury (or worse) through a combination of great skill and very great good fortune.

More prosaically – leaving aside the risks – the game of cricket is also meant to present an equitable contest between bat and ball. For Woakes versus Siraj, that would not have been the case – for reasons that had nothing to do with their respective skills as batsman and bowler.

Perhaps I am getting more risk-averse – or, simply, softer – in my old age. But I would suggest that the Chris Woakes incident was a (thankfully rare) example of cricket being reckless and – fortunately – getting away with it. I wish him a speedy recovery.

4th July 2025

Following the publication of The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents, I was invited by Helen Hart, the Publishing Director of SilverWood Books, to be in the spotlight for the regular “Meet the Author” Social Media Feature on its Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/silverwoodbooks).

The Feature makes use of a short questionnaire on the author’s background and writing.

Name/Pen name

John Rigg

Where are you from/where are you based?

I was born and brought up in Leeds, Yorkshire. However, I have lived in Milngavie, just to the north of Glasgow, for over 30 years.

Do you write full time or do you have a ‘day job’?

I am a retired civil servant. I do not write full time and, therefore, I have the luxury of choosing when to research/write and fit this in around other activities. My non-fiction writing principally covers watching sport – SilverWood Books has published three books in my An Ordinary Spectator series – and family history. The recently published The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents is my first book in the latter category.

How has your other work influenced your writing?

In the Senior Civil Service, an important part of my working day was spent drafting some form of written communication, including briefing notes for Ministers and/or other senior officials. At different times, these covered the economy, post-school learning and EU funding. It goes without saying that such briefing needed to be clear, accurate and succinct. That experience has undoubtedly stood me in good stead in my post-SCS life.

A related point is that it emphasised to me that I should be quite clear on exactly whom I am writing for. With The Line of Sixteen, it’s obviously the case that any family history of this type risks having a limited interest for those not in the family itself. Accordingly, by also discussing the detailed research methodology that has underpinned the book, I have sought to provide valuable insights on the sources to be explored and the pitfalls to be avoided when compiling any family history.

What is your favourite book?

For the presentation of historical material, I am a great admirer of Neil MacGregor, for example his Germany: Memories of a Nation (2016). He addresses a huge (and, as we know, at times, hugely disturbing) subject by focusing on specific physical items – a beer tankard, a coin, a medal, and so on – to illustrate the key points that he wishes to make. This also helps to place the reader firmly in the times about which MacGregor is writing: in other words, to add a sense of real-life existence to the names and dates.

Did this book inspire any aspects of your book? If so, how?

Whatever the particular genre of a history book – economic, social, family, etc – there usually tends to be a broadly consistent approach: researching, writing, checking, editing, illustrating, sourcing… A challenging task is to think about the structure that would be most appropriate for the volume. As mentioned, Neil MacGregor brilliantly used his selected physical objects. For The Line of Sixteen, I focused on my (adult) children’s great, great grandparents – of whom, there were 16, of course – each of whom I could then use as the basis from which go back and forward through the generations.

Where is your writing space?

Technically, the study, where I have a laptop and desktop. However – as with many SilverWood authors, I suspect – the real writing “space” is inside my head, perhaps subconsciously, where the kernel of an idea is formed and then developed over time. When that time comes, I find that I can write the initial (very rough) draft quite quickly, after which I like to take my time on the fine-tuning.

Are you currently working on anything new?

One of the inevitable consequences of publishing a family history is that new information and stories are revealed after the book has gone to print. I was fortunate that, at the proof-reading stage of The Line of Sixteen, I was able to include a last-minute reference in a footnote to a distant relative who died in Vermont, USA, in 2024 at the age of 104 – my first centurion. Subsequently, I have discovered someone else who was imprisoned in Stalag Luft 3 in 1943 (though he was transferred to another POW camp before The Great Escape!). I shall post occasional blogs on my website – An Ordinary Spectator – to bring the (never-ending) story up to date. The same forum will also be used for further blogs on watching sport – particularly football, cricket and rugby (league and union) – to complement the books in the An Ordinary Spectator series. Finally – though certainly not least – I am writing a third novel (under my JR Alexander persona), the first two of which are available on Kindle.

How does it feel to be a published author?

I have mentioned in a previous “Meet the Author” that there is an obvious satisfaction in seeing a project completed and produced to a high standard. This is definitely the case with The Line of Sixteen as the production challenges were more demanding than for the three sports books.

There is also a sense of pride in the subject matter. As stated on the dust jacket, there are no Prime Ministers in the narrative – no Admirals of the Fleet or Poets Laureate. But there are a host of “ordinary” – and heroic – people, whose resilience, courage and determination have taken the family story through to the present day. On the various branches of the family tree, they were the ones who experienced the Great Famine in the Ireland of the 1840s and the horrors of the First World War trenches and the perils of service in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War – and whose personal stories deserve to be told.

26th June 2025

The amateur Rugby League in Scotland is comprised of 4 sides: the Edinburgh Eagles (whose first round Challenge Cup tie against York Acorn in January 2022 I reported in An Ordinary Spectator Returns), Glasgow RL, the West End Warriors and the Forth Valley Vikings. They will play each other twice before the play-offs (involving all 4 teams) and Grand Final in August, the winners of which will enter the 2026 Challenge Cup.

The West End Warriors are a newly-formed club this year, but they have acquitted themselves well thus far: a narrow win over the Eagles and respectable 24-40 and 28-42 defeats to Glasgow and the Vikings, respectively. On Saturday, at the attractive ground of the West of Scotland FC rugby union club at Burnbrae, I caught up with the Warriors’ reverse fixture against the Vikings.

It was a totally different outcome compared with the first match. On a warm summer’s afternoon, the Warriors’ first possession saw Josh Walters handling twice in a move that led to a try under the posts by the prop forward Lachie Forsyth. Two further converted tries followed before the mid-half water break brought a temporary halt to proceedings at 18-0. By half-time, the score had stretched out to 36-0.

The two Warriors who stood out in broken play were Craig Colvin (who also maintained a 100 per cent conversion rate over the afternoon) and, especially, Walters. The latter’s distribution and running from acting half-back – plus his general lead in organising the side – marked him out as someone who was far from a novice at the sport. As, of course, he was not, his earlier professional career having included over 60 games for the Leeds Rhinos – including the 2015 Super League Grand Final – as well as a similar number of appearances in the Championship, most notably for Featherstone Rovers.

The Vikings did not give up. They came out firing in the second half and had the better of the play for the first quarter of an hour or so, being rewarded by a converted try by Taylor Paul. The lead was given by the scrum-capped Gregor Ramsay, who complemented an exhausting stint of copybook tackling with some determined running. The Warriors responded with two further tries of their own – the last fittingly by Walters – to take the final tally to 48-6.

Both sides gave a full commitment throughout the match, notwithstanding the testing conditions. They were clearly well-coached, notably in their aggressive two- and three-man tackling, which induced a number of handling errors. The sides also sought to move the ball towards their respective wings although, on a couple of occasions, straighter running by the outside backs might have led to more productive outcomes. However, the Warriors were generally more decisive with the ball down the middle of the pitch, the initial breaks invariably being well supported, and several of their tries were efforts from distance.

There were about 50 spectators dotted around the main Burnbrae stand – mainly friends and family, I should think – making it almost a private occasion. The game was sympathetically refereed – the official being sponsored by Specsavers, of course – although his task was not made easier by the absence of touch judges. The discipline from both sides was excellent.

My pre-match research revealed that the core of the Warriors side is drawn from Hillhead-Jordanhill RFC, which has just enjoyed a good season in Division 3 of the Arnold Clark National League (effectively the fourth tier of Scottish club rugby union). I shall follow the union’s side performance in 2025-26 with interest, given the honing of their skills currently being provided by this exposure to the different rugby code.

The up-to-date league table posted on the Scotland Rugby League website is currently headed by the Edinburgh Eagles, whose next match is against the West End Warriors at Burnbrae in July. A week later, the Warriors have another home fixture: the local derby against Glasgow RL. Two good games to look forward to in this closely contested league.

18th June 2025

As described in the An Ordinary Spectator series, my sport-watching over the years has occasionally taken in international contests of which I have been a disinterested – though not uninterested – third-party observer. For national teams, these began with the Women’s World Volleyball Championships in Minsk in 1978 – it’s a long story – including Belgium versus Tunisia and Yugoslavia versus Italy, through to Egypt versus Belarus in the football tournament of the 2012 Olympic Games and Sweden versus the Ukraine in Euro2020, both at Hampden Park.

On Monday, I extended this list by going to watch the Netherlands play Nepal. At cricket. A Men’s T20 match. In Glasgow.

The sides are currently taking part in a triangular tournament (with Scotland): each team will play the others twice at the Clydesdale CC ground at Titwood. This follows the same three sides also having played each other twice recently in Dundee in the 50-over One Day International (ODI) form of the game as part of the very lengthy qualification process for the next International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup. The finals are scheduled to be played in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia in October and November 2027.

The Titwood competition, whilst a stand-alone tournament in its own right, has particular significance for Scotland and the Netherlands, as it is the final testing ground before next month’s 5-nation European qualifier (which the latter will host in the Hague) for the ICC 2026 T20 World Cup. They will be joined by Guernsey, Jersey and Italy with each side playing the others once and the top two proceeding to the finals in India and Sri Lanka.

The current ICC T20 Men’s rankings place the Netherlands in 14th position and Nepal in 18th. (Scotland are 13th). However, whilst this suggested that the Netherlands would have been favourites for Monday’s game, the ODI matches in Dundee had cast some doubt over this, as Nepal had beaten the Netherlands twice and Scotland once, losing only to Scotland (by two runs when chasing a target of 324).

For my pre-match research on the players, I drew on the ICC’s excellent website for the latest individual T20 rankings. The Netherlands’ higher team ranking was supported by two of their batsmen being in the top 60 (Michael Levitt at 42 and Max O’Dowd at 53) and three bowlers in the top 80. For Nepal, the allrounder Dipendra Singh Airee was ranked 60th in the batsmen’s list and 80th in the bowlers’, though their Titwood squad also included the leg-spinner Sandeep Lamichhane, the country’s leading wicket-taker in both ODI and T20 cricket.

At Titwood, I took up a good position on one of a row of half a dozen plastic chairs behind the advertising hoardings next to the sightscreen at the far end of the ground from the pavilion. To my left was another man of about my age and to the right were a couple of other pensioners. We were joined by a young Australian.

I think that we were the only “neutral” spectators on our side of the ground. As far as I could see, the Dutch were absent. By contrast, the areas to our left and to the right on the other side of the sightscreen were occupied by perhaps two or three hundred Nepal supporters, who maintained a noisy and enthusiastic encouragement for their side throughout the afternoon. Flags, drums, symbols, horns, cheers, songs… it was a continuous cacophony that is probably quite rarely heard on the spacious playing fields of the G41 postcode.

The Netherlands batted first, Levitt and O’Dowd leading the way. The two sides’ innings were strikingly similar. Both reached 50 in the 6th over before being stalled by some excellent spin bowling in the middle overs – the bustling and accurate Lamichhane took three economical wickets for Nepal and the Dutch slow-left armer Daniel Doram responded likewise. Both sides fielded athletically and the two wicket-keepers – Scott Edwards (the Netherlands captain) and Anil Sah – were neat and efficient.

My Australian neighbour suggested early in the Netherlands innings that 150 would be about a par score. When, after a late innings acceleration, they finished on 152 for 7, I thought about asking him for this week’s lottery numbers. When Nepal batted, they reached 146 for 7 with two balls remaining. Their number 10 batsmen Nandan Yadav then struck a huge blow towards our sightscreen, which seemed destined to be the 6 to take his side to the brink of victory until one of the Dutch fielders – I think it was Noah Croes, who had earlier taken a stunning catch on the far boundary – ran around and then jumped up to parry the ball back into the field of play. The two runs scored meant that it was now 4 to tie or 6 to win off the last ball. The inevitable boundary took the Nepal total to 152 for 8. The scores were tied and – equally inevitably – there was a huge roar on our side of the ground.

Although I was aware that the Super Over – i.e. one over of 6 deliveries each (unless two wickets fall) – is the means used to determine a winner in a straight knock-out competition, I was slightly surprised that it was to be employed here, when the match was part of a group tournament. However, modern-day sport seems not to like the concept of a draw: a winner there must be. Still, it was new ground for me: I had not been present to see one played out before.

As the side having batted second for the 20 overs, Nepal took first strike in the Super Over and scored 19 runs. Levitt and O’Dowd then took 19 off the Nepal over, the latter registering a 6 and 4 off the last two deliveries. A second Super Over would be required.

This time, the Netherlands batted first and 17 runs were scored. When Nepal responded, the first ball was beautifully struck by the captain Rohit Paudel (who had top-scored with 48 in the 20-over match) high in the air towards us.

It is amazing how quickly the human brain can work when faced with an immediate challenge that requires an instant response. It took me only a split second to realise that the ball was not just travelling towards us: the direction and trajectory strongly suggested that it was specifically travelling towards me. It seemed as if Paudel had clearly aimed for the person sitting in my chair.

In the next split-second, I realised that I had a decision to make. Did I stand tall and heroically attempt to catch the ball? Or did I take evasive action by ducking down low to my left in front of an unoccupied plastic chair? It was at this point that the relevant brain cells registered that I was holding a ham and cheese sandwich purchased earlier in the day from the Marks and Spencer food store in Glasgow Central Station. Evasive action it was. The ball cleared the boundary rope and bounced into the advertising hoarding in front of us. It might have been at the cost of some personal dignity, but I am pleased to report that the sandwich was saved.

After Nepal had scored 11 runs from the first 5 deliveries of the second Super Over, I mentioned to my neighbour that they needed a 6 to tie. When, accompanied by an even louder roar of acclamation, Dipendra Singh Airee duly smote the last delivery over the long-on boundary rope, it meant that another Super Over was required.

That’s the trouble with Super Overs. You wait ages for one and then three come along at once.

The Dutch decided that the off-spinner Zach Lion-Cachet should bowl this time. He was up to the task, taking wickets with his first and fourth deliveries – with no runs being scored from the other two – which meant that, this time, the Nepal total was zero and the Netherlands simply needed one run to win.

I had been surprised that Nepal had not used Sandeep Lamichhane to bowl either of their two earlier Super Overs. He was chosen this time, however, thereby given the unenviable task of taking two wickets for no runs in order that another stalemate could be reached and yet another Super Over required. Given the events that I had witnessed over the previous half-hour or so, I did not rule this out, especially as Lamichhane had dismissed the Netherlands opener – Michael Levitt again – with his second delivery when he had come on to bowl in the 20-over context.

Lamichhane bowled the first delivery. Levitt smashed it for 6 over the distant long-on boundary. Game over.

It was the first time that a third Super Over had been required in Men’s professional ODI or T20 cricket.

The Netherlands play Nepal again tomorrow. A Men’s T20 cricket match at the Clydesdale CC ground in Glasgow.

27th May 2025

One of the final tweaks that I applied to the text of the recently published The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandchildren was to insert footnote 20 in Chapter 1:

“Including spouses, the greatest age reached by a member of the extended Rigg family has been that of Harriet Elizabeth Wheatley Riggs, who was born in Rutland and died in Richmond (both in Vermont, USA). Aged 104 when she died in 2024, she was the wife of Heath Kenyon Riggs (1918-2011), a great (x2) grandson of George and Jane Rigg”.

George Rigg (1802-1865), who was born and died in Baldersby, North Yorkshire, is the furthest in my direct Rigg line whom I have been able to identify. The parish records for Topcliffe state that he was the first son of “Mary Rigg of Baldersby” and “an unknown father”. George and Jane’s oldest son was William Rigg (1829-1905) and it was two of William’s sons – Stephen and Henry – who migrated from Stockton-on-Tees to Vermont in the 1890s.

Heath Kenyon Riggs was a grandson of Henry (who had added an ‘s’ to his surname in the USA) and Amelia Heath (who had been born in Middlesbrough). His obituary in the Burlington Free Press in April 2011 described his impressive academic career. He graduated with a BS degree from the University of Vermont (UVM) in 1940 and followed this with a PhD. from the University of Chicago. He returned to UVM as Director of Admissions in 1943 and then from 1953, after another period in Chicago, he worked in the mathematics faculty for over 30 years and is credited with introducing the first computer to UVM in 1960. He died in Burlington, Vermont, at the age of 92.

Heath married Harriet Elizabeth Wheatley in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1943.

Harriet’s lengthy obituary in the Burlington Free Press in April 2024 has provided a rich description of her full and active life: “a gifted writer, gardener, cook [with] a passion for Vermont history, notably Richmond history”. Her own degree was a BS in Home Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and she spent some time in the food industry. (Her entry in the 1950 US Federal Census records that she was a Home Economist in Chicago undertaking “research and education in breakfast cereals”).

Harriet’s local history interests included being a founding member of the Richmond Historical Society, the Richmond Town Historian and the author of Richmond VT, a History of More Than 200 Years (2007). She was also the first female Deacon of the Richmond Congregational Church. Her contribution to the local community was deservedly recognised in a declaration by the Richmond Vermont Selectboard (the town’s legislative body) on 3rd June 2019:

“Let it be resolved that June 4, 2019 be declared Harriet Wheatley Riggs Day in honor of Harriet’s 100th Birthday and her remarkable service to the Town of Richmond, VT”.

Harriet Elizabeth Wheatley Riggs is the first centurion that I have discovered during my extensive researches into the extended Rigg and English families. (There are several nonagenarians). Accordingly, it is salutary to think back to the month in which she was born – June 1919 – and reflect on the world as it then was.

Indeed, to the day on which she was born: 4th June 1919. The relevant page of Wikipedia records that this was also the day on which the United States Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution that would guarantee suffrage for women. That is quite a juxtaposition.

And other events that occurred during the month of June 1919? The Red Army made gains on the Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War, but lost ground to the White Volunteer Army on the Southern Front; John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown flew a Vickers Vimy on the first nonstop transatlantic flight from St John’s, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland; Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttled the German fleet at Scapa Flow; the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was established as an agency of the League of Nations; and two British Foreign Office officials – TE Lawrence (of Arabia) and St John Philby (father of the Soviet spy Kim Philby) – arrived in Cairo for discussions about Arab unrest.

And also: the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28th June, formally ending World War I, five years to the day after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

Major events in our distant past, all of which occurred during the first four weeks in the life of Harriet Elizabeth Wheatley Riggs.

15th May 2025

At the end of last month, I added a book on family history – The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents – to my three publications in the “An Ordinary Spectator” series on watching sport.

As its title suggests, the structure of the book is based around the cohort of direct ancestors who were 4 steps back in the generational lines that who led directly to the two children (who are now adults) in my family. Their years of birth cover the period 1836 to 1869 with their places of origin ranging across England, Scotland and Ireland as well as Malta and Germany.

The book’s presentation of some of the lines within the family story goes back much further – to 16th Century Yorkshire and Hannover and 17th Century Suffolk.

Of course, any family history of this type risks having a limited interest for those not in the family itself. However, by also discussing the detailed research methodology that has underpinned the narrative, I have attempted to provide insights on the sources to be explored and the pitfalls to be avoided when compiling any family history.

And so what does this mean for this “News Blog” page of the www.anordinaryspectator.com website?

The main implication is that it will henceforth contain my current thoughts on both themes – watching sport and family history. Hence, for example, I intend that the most recent blog (on the Hamilton Academical versus Raith Rovers SPFL match – “The Business End of the Season”, 31st March 2025) will be followed, before too long, by a tribute to a distant relative in Vermont, USA, who died last year (as The Line of Sixteen was going to print) at the age of 104.

This dual approach is based on a happy descriptive coincidence. In 2012, in the Preface to An Ordinary Spectator: 50 Years of Watching Sport, I explained my choice of the book’s title:

“It represents my status at most of the sports I have been to see. I have been “an ordinary spectator”. In other words, for the overwhelming majority of the sporting occasions I have witnessed, from touchline or terrace or stand, I have paid my own way. To use an excellent phrase favoured by Americans, it has been “on my own dime”.

My perspective has been, therefore, not that of the professional commentator or the paid journalist, still less of the participating sportsman/woman himself (or herself). Rather, it has been that of someone who has had to dip into his disposable income – whether from pocket money or student grant or take-home pay – in order to fund his spectating habit”.

Likewise, when drafting the back-cover summary of The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents, I was keen to emphasise the type of person featured in the book:

“There are no Prime Ministers in this narrative – no Admirals of the Fleet or Knights of the Realm (though a son-in-law of my own great, great grandfather did play rugby for England in the 1890s!). But there are a host of “ordinary” people whose resilience, courage and determination – on both my side and my wife’s – have taken the family story through to the present day.

Ordinary and heroic. They were the ones who raised their families and worked hard and migrated in order to better their prospects. They were the ones who experienced the Great Famine in the Ireland of the 1840s and the horrors of the First World War trenches and the perils of service in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War – and whose personal stories deserve to be told”.

The changed role of the “News Blog” page is part of a general refreshment of the website as a whole. The Contents at the top of the page have been re-designed – and streamlined – to accommodate the family history interests and the sport-related items jointly in a way that is, I hope, straightforward to navigate.

Feedback on the new design of the website is welcome. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with your views.

31st March 2025

Since attending my first football fixture in Scotland (Celtic vs Dunfermline Athletic in April 1992), I had seen – prior to last Saturday – 25 out of 42 clubs currently playing in the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL). At that rate of progress, it will take me another 22 years to complete the set. (These numbers exclude the five clubs – East Stirlingshire, Berwick Rangers, Brechin City, Cowdenbeath and Albion Rovers – that I watched before they dropped out of the SPFL).

At the weekend, I made the 70-minute train journey from Milngavie to Hamilton West – changing at Westerton – to watch Hamilton Academical FC play Raith Rovers FC in the Scottish William Hill Championship at New Douglas Park.

The football season is entering what the experts call its “business end”. At the start of play, Hamilton were in 8th position in the 10-team league, only two points above the 9th place slot (occupied by Dunfermline with a game in hand), the final occupants of which will be required to successfully negotiate play-offs with teams from the division below in order to retain their Championship status.

By contrast, Raith – in 6th place – were seemingly in mid-table no-man’s land: 6 points behind the 4th place (Partick Thistle) that would secure a position in the play-offs for promotion to the Scottish Premiership and 10 points above Hamilton. Nothing was guaranteed, however. With 3 points for a win and half-a-dozen games still to play, there remained scope for some twists before the promotion and relegation issues were finally decided.

Although I was greeted at Hamilton West by the correctly forecast weather of squally rain and gusting wind, I made a slight detour of my way to the ground by seeking out the house on Burnbank Road occupied in the 1860s by David Livingstone, the celebrated explorer and missionary, who had been born in neighbouring Blantyre. There was not much to see: a solid two-storey building with a white-washed facade directly in front of which a transit van was parked. It looked as if some renovation was taking place. There was a small plaque by the front door. I was glad to make my fleeting visit, however. I have a clear recollection of reading the Ladybird Books volume on David Livingstone in its children’s “Adventures in History” series when I was aged about 8 or 9. And how could I forget the name of the book’s author: L. du Garde Peach?

The damp, blustery conditions were sustained throughout most of the match – broken only by occasional heavier showers – the first half-hour of which was evenly fought on New Douglas Park’s artificial pitch. However, from my excellent vantage point at the top of the Main Stand, I sensed that Raith were beginning to get on top: sharper in the mid-field tackle, more co-ordinated in their passing and with the combative Finlay Pollock leading the forward line with energy and skill. The Hamilton goal was under threat when Dylan Easton cut in from the right-hand side and curled a left-footed shot just past the post.

If this served as a warning to the Hamilton defence, it was not heeded. Two minutes before half-time, Easton repeated the manoeuvre by cutting in from the right along the edge of the penalty area and, this time, striking the ball precisely inside goalkeeper Dean Lyness’s right-hand post. Cue celebration by the Raith supporters – a couple of hundred or so – who had journeyed from Kirkcaldy to take their position at the top of the stand behind the goal.

The play during most of the second half seemed to confirm that the teams’ respective standings in the league table were a fair reflection of their relative strengths. The Raith side – anchored in defence by Paul Hanlon and Callum Fordyce – took full control through further goals by Fordyce (an unchallenged header from a free kick) and Josh Mullin. The 3-0 scoreline reached in the 75th minute turned out to be the final result.

For the home supporters – all of whom were in the Main Stand in the crowd of just over 1,000 – it would have been a hard watch. I had detected some dissatisfaction in the first half when a promising attacking position was compromised by two long passes backwards that were accompanied by a general groan. Later, as the Raith goal tally mounted, most of the fans near to me seemed to deal with the impending defeat with a silent resignation and a communal shrug of the shoulders.

Over to my left, a minority were much more vocal in expressing their views about the team and, especially, its manager, John Hankin. Crudely vocal would be putting it mildly. Hankin – standing outside the manager’s dug-out and, no doubt, attempting to concentrate on the job at hand – could not have missed the vitriolic abuse that was being shouted at him from behind. It was not the first time that I had seen this type of public opprobrium directed at a football manager during a match. It is not pleasant to observe.

The sun came out for the last 10 minutes. Two of John Hankin’s substitutions – Jamie Barjonas and Kyle MacDonald – seemed to energise their side and, belatedly, Hamilton made their most threatening attacks of the match. The Raith goalkeeper, Josh Rae, was obliged to make three outstanding saves in quick succession, two of them from goal attempts – a powerful shot and a header – by MacDonald. The referee – Dan McFarlane, who had a sound match – blew the final whistle to a chorus of booing. My neighbour – an elderly Accies supporter, who had been silent throughout the proceedings – vocalised the very thought that I was having: “It could have been 3-3”.

At the close of play, the relative positions in the Championship league table were left largely unchanged. A victory for Partick Thistle at Greenock Morton meant that they remained in 4th place, six points above Raith Rovers. Likewise, Dunfermline’s defeat at Ayr United left them two points behind Hamilton, though still with a game in hand. Hamilton’s next match is on Saturday – away to Dunfermline.

As for my personal score, that’s now 27 football clubs I’ve now seen in action of those currently in the SPFL. The estimated time until the project completion has been reduced to 18 years.

Back in Milngavie on Saturday evening, walking home down a suburban street, I came across a young couple attired in water-proof clothing and hi-viz jackets. They were carrying buckets. We said “Good evening” to each other. I knew (from a recent local magazine report) that they were part of a volunteer group seeking to safeguard the passage of the toads that migrate at this time of year across that particular road from some woodland towards a nearby loch

So that was my day: recollecting a book I had read at primary school; watching professional football in Lanarkshire; observing the attempts to protect some local wildlife. Life can be nicely varied sometimes.

Postscript

Hamilton Academical FC were effectively relegated from the Championship 5 days after the Raith Rovers match when they received a 15-point deduction (and a fine) after the club was found to have breached multiple Scottish Professional Football League rules by an independent SPFL disciplinary tribunal.  The breaches included the failure to notify the SPFL in respect of the default of wage payments to 6 players and the provision of incorrect information regarding the stadium ownership.  The club’s subsequent appeal to the Scottish Football Association was rejected.

Separately, it was announced that Hamilton had rejected a plan to continue leasing New Douglas Park and would relocate to the Broadwood ground in Cumbernauld next season as plans were taken forward to build a new stadium.  Meanwhile, the Glasgow-based Clyde FC – the former tenants at Broadwood – would continue to play at New Douglas Park.

Raith Rovers finished 5^th in the final Championship table, just missing out on a play-off place.