By Paul Hargreaves
This Sunday will see a winner takes it all match between the two outstanding teams of the Junior League Championship. Norden and Lowerhouse have won five more games each than any other team in 2026.
Lowerhouse must have a great chance but history is not really on their side; it being 99 long years since the Second Eleven have brought the title back to Liverpool Roadd. The last winners in 1927 (their photograph is on the website along with the 1923 winners) tied on points with Burnley but were awarded the title having won 10 games to the 9 won by the Turf Moor outfit. Lowerhouse lost only 2 of the 18 games. Rob Burns was the side’s leading batsman with 262 runs. He had been the leading bowler by far of the ‘House 1923 Champions with an impressive 58 wickets. He would later take 111 wickets with the Firsts. He was just over three years short of his century when he died in Blackpool in 1999. In the ’27 side G. Smith was the outstanding bowler with 44 victims.
There were several players who got two winners medals from 1923 and 1927, of which Burns and Smith were the most notable. The ’23 side won 11 games and, like in 1927, lost just 2.
The ill-fated Victor Shutt, son of legend Tommy, took 8 wickets in this season. The leading batter was Wilkinson with 285 runs. Second to him was veteran Ted Drabble (265 runs) who had two medals of his own but his were for 1900 and 1923! Ted’s oldest son Joe was a youngster in the 1927 team.
Lowerhouse had won the first of their three Junior League Championships back in 1900. That side owed a great deal to a left arm spinner who was barely 18 years of age, and would go on to play over 200 games for the Lancashire County team. James Heap’s meteoric rise saw him take a remarkable 47 wickets at under 6 . Cowgill and Ridehalgh, also had fine seasons respectively, both taking 28 wickets each, in what was probably a Lowerhouse Seconds team’s best ever attack. That impressive bowling was backed up by the Drabble brothers (Bill 285 runs and Ted 156) The other main contributor was Joe Cook with 248 runs. He progressed to be a star with the Seniors and scored almost 5,000 runs in a Hall of Fame career.
So good luck to the lads on Sunday as they seek to overcome the 99 year drought and become the fourth Lowerhouse Seconds side to be crowned Junior League Champs.