Phillip Haigh invited David to play for the Casuals one Sunday when they were short.
Born in Newsome, he went to Stile Common primary school with Ken and Jeff Taylor, followed by King James Grammar School, Almondbury, where he did well at sports. Soccer was his first love. He was also cricket house-captain, made the school XI and was a championship winning captain with Hall Bower U15s. In addition, he turned out for Primrose Hill and played in the Heywood-Williams evening league. Whilst his formal cricket career finished when he started work as a trainee architect in his late teens, he remained a long-term player and member of The Huddersfield Amateurs AFC.
He joined The Casuals in 1960 when he was 30 or thereabouts, though his invitation to play must have predated that. David must have been a half-decent cricketer, as Gerry Shires once invited him to play for The Craven Gentlemen, but it rained.
David is seen here receiving his junior award from Bill Bowes. He fondly remembers the Bradford League during the war. There was no county cricket, so he and a pal packed their sandwiches, hopped on a bus and visited nearly all the league grounds in search of the English and Australian test players who were not serving abroad.
Written Summer 2010
David died 2012. David Walker, a fellow New Mill Male Voice Choir member, wrote ‘a truly gentle person who didn’t seem to have any dark corners. He was the guy I looked to, for a smile and a sigh, a quiet moment and a few words of solace’.
Almondbury Casuals Cricket Club 