In the village notes, the Bolton Journal and Guardian commented: "Tennis courts, bowling green and cricket ground were all deserted on Saturday in eloquent comment on the last big cricket test in which the village was engaged at Heaton. Bradshaw, now league champions, had no lack of support in the match against Horwich, and this in fact was never more demonstrated than during the final last wicket stand between Jim Smith and Joe Walch, with the aid of whom Bradshaw won the match. These players proved that Bradshaw is certainly not a "one-man" team. Threlfall as usual played an important part with both bat and ball, but the match was actually won by those two tried servants of the club, neither of them accounted batsmen yet both defying the Horwich attack and scoring valuable runs. Smith's success is especially pleasing, because hitherto his change bowling has scarcely been needed and on that account his part in the team's achievement has noticeably been a small one. At the right moment he came out to play a big part, and it must be said that the role of match winner was very becoming. Yet it is thanks to every man on the side, not one alone, that the league flag flies over The Rigby's".

For the Darcy Lever match at The Rigby's that year, any colliers who were members of the Darcy Lever club were allowed on the ground free, Bradshaw's only proviso being that Darcy Lever had a gate man in attendance, presumably for identification purposes. A sign of the austere times of 1926.

The following season 20 of the 21 teams that had formed the East and West sections were included in a mammoth first division in which each club would play 22 matches. The six teams each club avoided would be on their fixture list in 1928.

This new league system was viewed with some suspicion by the better clubs, their reservations being justified when the public did not support the less attractive fixtures.

Egerton must have wished Bradshaw had not been on their fixture list in that season of 1927, when Threlfall took 8 wickets against them for 3 runs at Longworth Road, Billy Baines proving more expensive with 2 for 5. It was also this season that Billy Drinkwater, playing in a second team game against Atherton Collieries, took 9 wickets for 0 runs, the one he missed being the last to fall. Not feeling fulfilled, he smote the first ball of the Bradshaw innings into the brook and the match was won.

At the end of June an advert was placed in the local paper, "First-class amateur stumper for first-team work". The regular wicket keeper did not appear again in the team that season, and it is a matter for conjecture whether he had left the club, or was dropped. Perhaps he read the Evening News and could take a hint.

The results of 1928 were as successful as any in the clubs history. 14 league matches were won, to be equalled only in 1945 and 1963. Only one league match was lost, again as in 1963 and also 1976. Surprisingly Bradshaw finished only as runners-up to Radcliffe, who won 16 matches but lost 12. Heaton in third place won 15 games, yet neither were on Bradshaw's fixture list. Attendance's continued to fall and 1929 (when Threlfall's haul of 109 wickets brought his total to 378 in his four seasons with the club) was Bradshaw's last in the Bolton & District Cricket Association.

Not without a show of some ill-feeling by the Bolton & District Cricket Association on behalf of the clubs not included, the Bolton Cricket League was formed in 1930. The reasons given by the 'exclusive' twelve clubs for their move were:

To increase the attractiveness of the entertainment they had to offer by forming themselves into a new league, to improve grounds, to engage good professionals, and last but not least, to have control of their own affairs. A particular concern was to avoid any form of relegation, a condition on which they would have had to agree had the same clubs been set up as a first division under the jurisdiction of the Bolton & District Cricket Association.

Bradshaw played a prominent part in the ultimate breakaway. Following a meeting on the 27th August 1929 in the cricket pavilion, during which the "present system of the B & D.C.A." was discussed, it was agreed "to leave the matter in the hands of John Sofield". Mr Sofield then invited representatives of Astley Bridge, Eagley, Farnworth, Heaton, Kearsley, Radcliffe, Tonge and Westhoughton, to a meeting at Rockwood House, Bradshaw, the home of Councillor Thomas Lomax JP, the chairman of Bradshaw Cricket Club. The conclusion reached at the gathering was that "A change must be made in the present system of the B & D.C.A., for the season 1930". Thus the seeds were sown for the formation of the Bolton League in a house that stands at the Bradshaw Brow end of Oaks Lane.

It was agreed that the new First Division of the new league should be formed from clubs already in the B & D.C.A. and subsequently Little Lever were invited to be the tenth side, and with a later decision to extend the league to 12, Egerton and Walkden, who were also the choices of Bradshaw, were voted as the final members.

'Jack' Sofield, who it seems was so instrumental in the forming of the Bolton League, had a long connection with Bradshaw Cricket Club. He can be seen on a 1901 photograph as scorer to the first team. He made his first team debut in the first match of 1906 and continued to play in at least some of every season for the first team until June 1927. This span also covered the years he was secretary to the club, combining the club captaincy, 1916-19, and for the first half of 1927. With this sort of service to the game, it was perhaps fitting he should be appointed the first chairman of the Bolton League.

He continued to serve on the Bradshaw cricket committee until 1952, the year Mr. T. Lomax, in his 25th term as club chairman, requested a vice-chairman be elected. This honour was accorded to Jack Sofield. At the A.G.M. that year, Mr. Louis Ingham, in making the proposal, read a letter from Mr. Richard Cuerden, who himself had held the cricket-section chairmanship for 15 years, outlining details of Mr. Sofield's 53 years with the club. Mr. Cuerden died suddenly the next day, leaving Mr. Sofield to serve his last year as cricket-section chairman. With Mr. Cuerden, Mr. Sofield was an original member of the Management Committee, and was elected a life member of the club in 1953.

The first year of Bolton League cricket resulted in Bradshaw occupying a modest sixth position but, after disposing of Tonge at Castle Hill in their very first Hamer Cup tie, their second round match against Walkden proved an extraordinary affair.