Richard Peel, winner of the JCT600 Bradford League’s Unsung Hero award, admits he would be lost without Bankfoot Cricket Club.

The 50-year-old confessed: “It is my club and if Bankfoot Cricket Club went out of existence, I don’t know what I would do with myself.

“It is fantastic to win this award – very pleasing – but I don’t do things to win awards like this and I could name some people down at my club who are equally worthy.”

Peel is carrying on a family tradition at the Odsal club and explained: “My dad Russell used to play here and brought me down before I could remember, so I have been coming down for almost 50 years.

“I took over from him as scorer in 1972 when I was tin boy and he became my tin boy when he was 37 – one of the older tin boys in the league!

“I used to play for Bankfoot’s under-14 team when I was ten and have gone on to become a committee member, the club treasurer and league representative.”

Peel has the advantage of living near the ground and said: “I used to live a stone’s throw away from Lightcliffe Cricket Club and now I live two minutes away from Bankfoot Cricket Club.

“If the alarm goes off at 4am then I come down, and I will open up the bar at 9.30am. But another helper has already been down working on the ground after Geoff Hanson has finished preparing it.

“We have a committee of 14 and they are all workers – but we will never be one of the Bradford League’s rich clubs.

“I can remember talking to a well-known Bradford League player and said to him ‘You’re lucky, you have two millionaire backers’ and he said ‘You’re wrong – we have FOUR millionaire backers!’ “But at Bankfoot we start from scratch at the beginning of September because our funds are exhausted.

“Players don’t understand that you have to raise £130 just to play each of your matches, what with umpires’ fees, scorers’ fees, new balls etc, before you even think about paying players – and that figure rises to several thousand pounds over the course of the season.”

Yet Peel has plenty to look forward to at the club, for whom former England spinner Derek Underwood played in 1990.

The Unsung Hero revealed: “We are already thinking about things to do in 2013 when we celebrate our 150th anniversary.

“I am trying to trace all the players who have represented Bankfoot Cricket Club since the 1970s.”

Peel admits to not being a talker – “I was better at maths at school than English” – but he manages all right in what is an unusual set-up.

He explained: “We used to have three committees – the cricket club, hockey club (Bradford) and the Pavilion Club, who look after the bar and ground.

“Then the hockey club moved to Thornton when an artificial pitch became available and West Bowling rugby league club moved in.

“There is the odd thing to sort out but generally we all get on well with each other and we do joint fund-raising ventures. There’s a recession but hopefully we will survive.”