Bernard has been a stalwart of local cricket for over 50 years as a player, captain, junior coach, junior umpire and scorer, representing his club, Buxworth CC, in all those capacities.

He was born into a cricket mad family with a deep seated love of the sport. His father, Jack, was a very good club player with a great love for the game and his mother’s brother, Stan Burdekin, was an outstanding bowler for Birch Vale CC.

As a result, Bernard played junior cricket from an early age and graduated to senior cricket at Buxworth at the age of 13. Over the years, he has been an outstanding cricketer at club level in both the High Peak and Derbyshire & Cheshire Cricket Leagues.

In his career at Buxworth, he won the club 1st XI batting averages on 8 occasions, the all rounder trophy 10 times and the bowling award five.

On the basis of these performances, he played regularly at league representative level for both High Peak and Derbyshire & Cheshire Leagues.

In addition, he played professionally for Derbyshire CCC for a season and also as a league professional for Knypersley CC and GEC Kidsgrove CC in North Staffordshire before returning to play for his village club.

Bernard first started to assist with junior development at Buxworth whilst still playing and since his retirement, has done further work in this field as a coach, umpire and scorer.

He was also a talented footballer, playing as a professional for 3 seasons at Liverpool FC between 1960-62 under the great Bill Shankly.

Bernard has been a great servant of the game, most importantly playing it in the right spirit, humble in victory and gracious in defeat. Consequently, he has a huge number of friends within the game both at his own club and within opposition clubs and is popular wherever he goes in cricket circles.

His service to the game is outstanding and he is a worthy winner of this prestigious trophy.

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