TRIBUTES are being paid to legendary Bradford League cricketer Brian Clough, whose career spanned a record-breaking seven decades.

Clough, 82, one of the competition’s finest amateur players, died at Dewsbury Hospital on Wednesday, after a short illness.

His outstanding contribution to the Bradford League was acknowledged in 2006 when he won the coveted Sir Leonard Hutton Trophy.

He scored 10,278 first-team runs during a career which saw him enjoy spells with Spen Victoria, Lightcliffe, Bradford and Bowling Old Lane. He played his first senior game as a nine-year-old, wearing short trousers for Spen Victoria in 1941, and played his last game for Bowling Old Lane Seconds at Esholt in 2005.

He gave outstanding service to Old Lane as a player, captain, president, chairman and tea-maker. But it was his cricketing skills and knowledge of the game that his contemporaries marvelled at.

Former Yorkshire and England batsman Doug Padgett, an opening partner of Clough’s at Bowling Old Lane, said: “Brian was an excellent league cricketer. He wasn’t far short of playing first-class cricket, and I am sure that if he had been given the chance, he would have done well.

“He had such great enthusiasm and he was a wonderful servant of Bowling Old Lane. Brian had a great knowledge of the game.”

Barry Jenkinson was an all-rounder in the Old Lane team which Clough led to Priestley Cup final victory over Saltaire in 1968.

He said: “I can remember one day that I was late back from tea and Brian told me he was dropping me from four to 11 in the batting order.

“That day we struggled and I had to go in and play out for the draw. After the match I heard some of the spectators speaking. They said it was tactical genius by Clough to put Jenky at No 11 to play for the draw. They weren’t aware that I had been disciplined by the captain.”

Brian Lymbery, who scored more than 13,000 Bradford League runs, fondly recalls playing against Clough.

“You could never rest for a second as a batsman when Brian was captaining the opposition. He would always be tinkering with the field and making it difficult for you to score runs.

“Many of the younger players may have regarded him as a little eccentric – they didn’t realise just how much knowledge he had to pass on.”

Bowling Old Lane’s second-team captain Haqueq Siddique has known Clough since joining the club in 1997.

“He was ‘Mr Cricket’. He was so knowledgeable about cricket and our club. He was a great communicator and he would often send messages to our captain. I feel priveleged to have known him.”

The funeral of Clough, who leaves a wife Pat, son David, the Press Association’s cricket correspondent, and two grandsons Sam (14) and Daniel (12), will be at St Paul’s Church, Birkenshaw on Tuesday, February 10, noon.