WITH the only issues to be decided on Saturday being whether Keighley or Windhill will apply for re-election and whether East Bierley or Saltaire will win the second XI Division Two championship, attention in the JCT600 Bradford League turns to those who are either hanging up their whites for good or stepping down into second-team cricket.
Those changing their circumstances are a particularly fine crop this year, with Bankfoot's Neil Nicholson and Bradford & Bingley's Richard McCarthy retiring and Hanging Heaton's John Carruthers opting for second-team cricket.
McCarthy, 53, has taken 1,036 first-team league wickets while Carruthers, 45, has 1,014.
Nicholson, meanwhile, has scored 12,910 league runs spanning six clubs – East Bierley, Windhill, Pudsey Congs, Idle, Cleckheaton and Bankfoot (twice).
The 51-year-old said: "I think I have played for a bit too long, but it is also the travelling.
"I live in Nottingham and am setting off at 9am and getting home at 9.30pm or 10pm. It makes it a very long day."
Bankfoot, who are also losing Rob Ellis (emigrating to New Zealand), finish off at home to, perhaps appropriately, one of his former clubs in Idle.
McCarthy will be heading back to Australia this winter, but Carruthers wants to help out his club's second team.
He said: "I love Hanging Heaton as a club and want to put something back in."
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