Joan Peel today expressed her delight at being named the first woman to win the JCT600 Bradford League’s Sir Leonard Hutton Trophy.

The 80-year-old Undercliffe stalwart has therefore followed in the footsteps of her husband Donald, who was the 1973 winner.

“It feels absolutely marvellous to have won it,” said Peel, who has been involved with her club for 60 years, including 40 as assistant secretary.

“It is great to follow on from not only Donald, but also Undercliffe’s Jack Lee, who won it in 1976. But winning it is not something that I thought about.

“Things have changed a lot since women were not allowed in the pavilion at Undercliffe and were only able to watch from the secretary’s hut!”

Peel’s great friend Michael Hope (Bradford Junior League chairman) knew about her winning the award but was not allowed to tell her beforehand.

“Michael tells me he had great difficulty keeping quiet about it!” she said.

Bradford & Bingley’s Richard McCarthy, who won the JCT600 players’ player of the year award, was going to play in the Aire-Wharfe League next season but was persuaded to stay at Wagon Lane by his team-mates.

The Australian-born pace bowler said: “I was going to pack senior Bradford League cricket in and play for Harden as I missed part of last season with injury.

“But Bingley said that they wanted me to stay. We have a side here that can win the double and we should have won the league this season.

“We lost against Yeadon and tied with them, and they are games that we really should have won, and then we lost against Cleckheaton where we were too negative in our batting.

“We have to learn from that. If we had won even two of those games, we would have won the league. Instead we have finished second two years in a row.”

McCarthy added: “We have a great group of lads and Naweed Ghany was absolutely fantastic for us as an overseas player because we didn’t really know what to expect from him.

“David Clow had a great season – as did Simon Davies, which is what we expect from him.”

Baildon leg-spinner Jamie Abbott, like McCarthy, reached 1,000 Bradford League wickets during 2010, adding to his lustre in a fine family heritage that includes his dad David and grandfather Eric.

Cleckheaton’s Mal Nicholson, who took 35 victims, won the F Milton Watmough Wicketkeeping Trophy for the fourth successive season. He was already a record-holder for winning it in three successive years.