The quaint English tradition of cricket teas have been consigned to history in a league in which teams from Keswick, Threlkeld and Braithwaite play.
Gone are the tables of home-made tasty sandwiches, savouries, fruit pies, cakes and biscuits at tearooms on some long-standing countryside cricket grounds.
Legions of ‘tea ladies’ who for years devoted their time and talents to the provision of teas for cricketers, umpires, scorers, and spectators alike, are now a thing of the past; victims to the passage of time and, perhaps more pertinently, the emergence of allergens which clearly, did not exist, or at least kept a very low profile, when the traditional cricket tea was in its heyday.
Allergens, which can have a serious impact on health for some people, include nuts, celery, cereals containing gluten, prawns, eggs, fish, milk, molluscs, mustard and peanuts.
Their rise was just one of several reasons behind a decision taken by the management committee of the Eden Valley Cricket League (EVCL) at the Sun Inn, Newton Reigny, to kick cricket teas into the long grass.
The committee members all expressed their heart-felt appreciation of the formal, home-spun cricket tea but, faced with a difficult decision, felt they had no option but to decide that cricket teas would not be required at EVCL matches in the spring and summer of 2022.
Two years of the COVID pandemic, which resulted in players providing their own teas for matches, provided the springboard for a change of approach. Added to this the complications resulting from allergens and potential legal problems, also played a part.
In the absence of any concrete advice from its governing body, the England and Wales Cricket Board on the allergen issue, the committee felt it had to protect its member clubs.
And in the face of a diminishing band of tearoom volunteers, clubs were faced with vastly increased costs to provide teas from professional caterers or an allergen-conscious source.
Not only that, players had also become used to bringing along their own food and drink to matches during the Covid pandemic and some preferred the option of taking their teas as and when they wanted rather than at a particular time and place.
Keith Richardson, a member of the EVCL management committee that took the unanimous decision, said he was sorry to see the demise of the cricket tea.
“I have very fond memories of some wonderful cricket teas and equally marvellous rural locations deep in the heart of the aptly named Eden Valley,” he said.
“I can remember with pleasure those amazing teas at Gamblesby with the home team taking their tea in the sitting room at the farmhouse and the visitors in the kitchen.
“It was an incredible spread with assorted sandwiches, cakes and a particular favourite of mine, as it was with Geordie Hutton, blackcurrant pies. All washed down with as many cups of tea as you could manage.
“A young fast bowler on our Keswick team, Roger Horton, once ate so much during the tea interval at Gamblesby that on resumption of play he was physically incapable of running up to the wicket to bowl and had to be rested at third man until he had made a complete recovery.”
