During the course of last season we encountered four clubs competitively for the first time ever at 1stXI level which takes the 1st team total up to a whopping 123 teams over the years. There can't be that many clubs - especially around this area where cricket has been traditionally parochial - who can say that they have met over a hundred others clubs in competitive cricket. Wandering clubs such as the MCC, I Zingari & the XL club will undoubtedly have many many more but not in competitive games. If I was guessing, Bolton CC might approach that sort of number having played in several leagues, but it's hard to think of many more who might get close. And, if you add in 9 teams that we have played at 2ndXI but not 1st, plus 10 at 3rdXI and, perhaps even more surprisingly 4 that we have only ever faced competitively at junior level our total stands at an eye watering 146 clubs!!
It helps that we have been somewhat nomadic over the years and having started in the lower leagues of the Bolton Association, we moved on to be founding members of the South West Lancashire Cricket League in 1963 before rejoining the Bolton Association (this time in the senior division) in 1975. There we stayed until the infamous decision of the exec to suspend the senior sides in 2006 in a row over the location of our new ground. The Manchester Association stepped in to give us a home for the next eight years before the BDCA exec came back cap in hand to ask us to rejoin the league. The demise of the league couldn't be stopped though and the league (or what was left of it) merged into the Bolton League in 2016 which was to be our home for 7 seasons before they in turn merged with the Ribblesdale League to create the North West Cricket League where we currently play our cricket. That makes 7 leagues over the years and if you add into that forays into the Lancs KO, National KO and Regional Finals in the T20 and it's easy to see where all the games mount up.
Inevitably across all those moves and competitions there is a good proportion of teams that we have met on just the one occasion and last season's four - Thornton Cleveleys, Carnforth, Ackworth and Morpeth - have taken the number of one off opponents up to 27. These "one off" encounters have seen us come out on top in 14 of the games and beaten in the other 13.
Thirteen clubs have been met only in cup games and never in any other format (three of those on 2 occasions - Leyland, St Marys Old Boys and Stretford), and similarly there are seven other clubs that we have played only in T20 competitions over the years with Ormskirk the only one that we have met twice.
At the other end of the scale our most frequent opponents have seen us play 11 clubs on over 50 occasions in various competitions - varying from 69 to 87 times. Next season will see us locking horns again with Atherton who have, over the years, been our most frequent opponents with us having had no fewer than 87 fixtures against each other since we first crossed paths in 1975 (a low scoring draw incidentally). The only other members of the "50+" club that we will be meeting next summer will be Blackrod who by the end of last season we had met 70 times in all competitions with our first meeting like that v Atherton ending in draw. The remaining members of the 50+ club comprise Daisy Hill (81), Little Hulton (79), Adlington (76), Standish (75), Clifton (71), Edgworth (70), Walshaw (70), Astley & Tyldesley (69) and Golborne (69).
So, who have we been the most successful against over the years? Taking 20 matches as a reasonable number of meetings over the years, our best win percentages have come against Barton Hall (60%) and Bickershaw also with 60% from 30 and 25 games respectively. Next comes Southport Trinity with 56% in 25 games, then Winstanley Park 52% (31 games) and making up the top 5 Winstanley Park on 52% from 31 games. Interesting that 4 of the 5 come from our South West Lancs days when arguably we had our most successful spell at 1stXI level.
As for our least favourite opponents then Horwich RMI lead the way having won no fewer than 75% of our 24 matches since we first met in 2016. A good job we won four of the first five then! Next up come Astley Bridge Methodists 62% in 23 games, Spring View 52% in 31 games, Kearsley 50% (20 games) and Brooksbottom also 50% in 24 games
So finally what of our opponents next season in the Premiership, what is our record like against each of them? Well, in ALL competitions it looks like this :-
| Club | Pld | Won | Lost | Tied | Draw etc | Win % | Lose % | |
| Atherton | 87 | 23 | 29 | 0 | 35 | 26.44% | 33.33% | |
| Blackrod | 70 | 30 | 27 | 0 | 13 | 42.86% | 38.57% | |
| Eagley | 19 | 11 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 57.89% | 31.58% | |
| Farnworth | 16 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 31.25% | 37.50% | |
| Farnworth SC | 39 | 15 | 17 | 1 | 6 | 38.46% | 43.59% | |
| Kearsley | 20 | 6 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 30.00% | 50.00% | |
| Little Lever | 14 | 5 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 35.71% | 50.00% | |
| Padiham | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 100.00% | |
| Read | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100.00% | 0.00% | |
| Salesbury | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 33.33% | 66.67% | |
| Tonge | 11 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 81.82% | 18.18% |
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