O/T Phew, what a scorcher !

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Comparisons being drawn today at work with the drought of '76.
Hosepipe ban,Derwent Res dry as a bone, I remember standpipes going up on our street although they were never actually used, and the water running brown out of the taps.

Swimming in the Dearne to cool off and Barry Murphy at right back.

Those were the days my friends......

[animallittle3]

Remember it well as a kid in the 6 weeks holiday .

Everyday it was 30 degrees for just about the entire summer holiday .

I can recall one of my jobs was to go and fill two buckets of water from the stand pipes every morning before disappearing for the day playing cricket with my mates .

We'd moved on to a proper corky by this time , soft balls were for kids and we were above that apparently .

Said corky was an oval shaped thing and had probably had around a thousand games under its belt at various levels of cricket , the seam had completely disappeared and the cherry was well on it's way to resembling a sort of brown colour .

No pads , no gloves , this was 1976 after all although we did have a decent bat given to us by a bloke who played for Darton and had bought a new one .

You needed bottle and application to keep your wicket on a baking hot uneven pitch , the truth is it could be a terrifying experience if some of the older lads were bowling .

My old man provided the wicket keeping clubs courtesy of the stores at work , thick boiler man's gloves , they were perfect for the job .

Happy days and not a computer in sight .

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Could never get on with cricket, I remember going up to Monk Bretton Cricket Club that summer and getting a little cardboard membership card, we'd go into the big old wooden pavilion and take our pick of of old stumps, pads and bats and go off and practice away from the grown ups. Game was always too slow for me. Grass was brown and worn to dust where the stumps were and all the blokes would go to The Pheasant at the top of High Street after practice.

Went to watch a few times with my mates but really couldn't get into it.

Played at Barnsley Rugby Club at Stairfoot from 16 until leaving Barnsley in my late twenties, loved it.Started my love affair with bikes at about the same time.

I remember us spending hours in the fields near where we lived, camping out, British Bulldog and no phones or bloody emails !