ON THIS DAY By Paul Hargreaves
June 27th, 1908
Lowerhouse vs Nelson
A top half of the table clash this day. The visitors batted first and collapsed from 71-4 to 90 all out. Their excellent skipper John Brooks made 23 to be top scorer. He was a very good all round player at Seedhill for two decades. He took 747 wickets and made 28 fifties in scoring over six thousand League runs.
On the day four other batsmen made double figures. These were opener Throup; Wynne; Robinson and pro’ George Wilson. Wilson had made his name playing for Worcestershire and he went on to play five seasons in the Lancashire League. Two of these were at Nelson , two at Todmorden and finally 1915 at Lowerhouse. He was an excellent and consistent bowler averaging over 100 wickets per season. He took 95 in his only Liverpool Rd. season. A handy rather than prolific batter, he made five first class fifties and the same number over his five Lancashire League years.
Tommy Shutt, hardly a surprise, was the leading bowler for ‘House. He took 5-19 one of the 69 5-fors he took for his local team.
For once it was an armchair ride for Lowerhouse fans as they passed the target with only two wickets down. Lowerhouse had rare depth in their amateur ranks and Joe Cook(41) and William Whittaker(36) saw the team home.
It was a great win for Lowerhouse because Nelson finished League runners-up whereas Lowerhouse were joint 4th. In beating Nelson, though, ‘House had unwittingly helped Burnley stay at the top and complete a famous hat-trick of Championships.