Rain almost stopped play for Emmerdale’s sporting soap stars but they didn’t disappoint hundreds of fans who turned up to watch them play a charity cricket match tonight.

More than 300 spectators were at Bradford and Bingley’s Wagon Lane ground to greet the team as the actors took the field for their first floodlit charity cricket game an hour later than planned.

Heavy rain meant filming schedules had to be changed, causing a delay to the Twenty20 game. But once there, the actors were in bullish mood.

Chris Chittell, who plays dodgy dealer Eric Pollard in the popular soap, said: “The last time we came here, we were absolutely thrashed, so this is the grudge match. You are going to see sparks flying!”

Joining Chris on the Emmerdale team sheet were Chris Villiers, who plays solicitor Grayson Sinclair, and former Emmerdale actor Mark Cameron, who has just finished playing Leeds United’s Norman Hunter in The Damned United, a film set to be released next year. A crowd of female autograph hunters crowded around Emmerdale heart throb Matthew Wolfenden, who plays Chris Chittell’s on-screen son David Metcalfe as he rushed into the changing rooms ahead of play.

Philip McGinley, who plays loveable rogue Tom Kerrigan in TV’s Coronation Street and ex-Emmerdale actor Paul Opacic, took to the pitch for the charity match, in aid of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Team Emmerdale coach and veteran Bradford League star George Batty revealed the soap stars had put in some secret training sessions at Undercliffe Cricket Club’s practice nets.

He said: “They have had some heavy filming commitments and have not had that much opportunity to train but they have been doing their best in the nets. I think our quality is in our secret weapon –- it’s that secret that even we don’t know what it is!”

Chris Chittell, who helped to organise the match, said: “I’ve got people coming all the way from London to play the game and I was the one who was late. Because of the rain, they had to change the filming schedules around but I’m just glad we all made it.”

Emmerdale team captain Rolly Plant, who works behind the scenes on the ITV soap, has been involved in organising charity fundraising matches for about 25 year.

At first matches were held against the Malt Shovel pub team in Esholt but more recently, the Emmerdale team has played at Headingley and Trent Bridge, Nottingham, raising thousands of pounds for various charities.

Paul Gowland, fund raising director for Yorkshire Air Ambulance, said: “A few of us play regularly but this is the first time that everybody has played under flood lights.

“We are hoping to raise over a thousand pounds and the money will go towards the £7,200-a-day – £2.6million a year running costs of the air ambulance.

“We have flown 2,260 people to treatment centres since we started in 2000 and we want to help many others who need it.”

e-mail:marc.meneaud @telegraphandargus.co.uk