IN the dark July of 1940, Henry Firth – acting president of Keighley Cricket Club – pins a Keighley Stickers’ Club badge on to Eddie Paynter’s pullover in the interval of a match against Bingley.
Objects of the Stickers’ Club were “to stick it at all costs, whatever the enemy do; to obey the advice and the instructions of the Government; and to wear the badge”.
Thanks partly to such prominent public enrolments, the Stickers’ Club attracted 4,000 members in a fortnight, encouraging similar morale-boosting organisations as far afield as Morecambe, Colwyn Bay and Worthing.
Eddie Paynter promptly went in to score 45 in the second half. During the 1941 season, he averaged 52.37 runs per innings, emerging the following year as the best scorer in the Bradford League.
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