A special event will this Sunday mark the 100th birthday of ‘Pudsey’s favourite son’ – legendary cricketer Sir Leonard Hutton.
A civic plaque to recognise Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club as the place both Hutton and fellow Yorkshire and England great Herbert Sutcliffe started their careers will be unveiled.
The plaque, which also marks Hutton’s 100th birthday, will be unveiled at the Tofts Road ground on the 30th October, and the club is hoping that a member of the Hutton family will be available to officially unveil it.
The club will also be part of a special service to celebrate Hutton’s birthday at Fulneck Church. The service will be delivered by the Bishop of Hereford, himself a keen cricketer and a member of the 364 club. The service will take place at 10.30am.
Following the unveiling of the plaque after the service, members and guests will be invited to enjoy refreshments in the clubhouse.
Hutton already has a blue plaque dedicated to him at his family home at 5 Fulneck.
Hutton was born on June 23, 1916, into the Moravian community. His father was of Scottish origin, his mother a descendant of the central European sect founded by John Hus.
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack described him as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He set a record in 1938 for the highest individual innings in a Test match in only his sixth Test appearance, scoring 364 runs against Australia, a milestone that stood for nearly 20 years (and remains an England Test record).
Sutcliffe was born in 1894 and died in 1978. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class England career spanned the period between the two world wars. His grandfather ran the Kings Arms pub and his father Willie worked there and was himself a batsman for St Lawrence.
He began playing for Pudsey St Lawrence’s second team aged 13 in 1908. The following year, Sutcliffe made his first-team debut and one of his team-mates was Henry Hutton, Len’s father. Sutcliffe also founded the Leeds and Wakefield based sports shops which carried the family name from 1925 until the business folded in the 1990s.
St Lawrence, meanwhile, are hoping to write another chapter in their distinguished cricketing history by winning the inaugural Yorkshire Cricket Premier League final in Abu Dhabi today.
