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All hands to the ale pump after club fire

26/ 1/2008

THE idea of warm beer is abhorrent to most ale aficionados, but for drinkers at Littleborough Cricket Club, they really had no alternative after a disastrous fire wrecked their pavilion in the summer of 1967.

In fact as our photograph shows, the beer tap was just about the only thing that remained virtually intact after the July fire.

So severe was the fire, as the other photo shows, that the building was reduced to practically a shell.

The blaze gutted the building and destroyed all the club's playing kit and equipment.

Temporary changing accommodation had to be set up in the tennis pavilion behind the tearoom.

A new set of cricket tackle also had to be bought.

The fire started in the early hours and the alarm was raised by a former Littleborough councillor, Norman Angus.

He had seen flames coming from the direction of the pavilion while taking his dog for a walk.

At first he thought it was the houses behind the pavilion but, as he got nearer, he realised it was the pavilion.

He then ran back to his home and phoned the fire brigade.

But by the time the first appliances had reached the scene, the building was well alight.

Only the till – containing about £11 in notes and £14 in silver – was salvaged.

All the club records were destroyed, along with cricket bats, pads and stumps in one of the worst disasters ever to befall the Hare Hill club.