Evan Hulme was helped by Fred Hartley to the League wicket-keeping prize this season, 25 of Hulme's 28 stumpings coming from his bowling.

At the end of 1944 and early 1945, a scheme to improve the ground was first proposed at an estimated cost of £1,500. In the autumn of 1945 an Appeal Fund was started with £2,000 as the target, and a house-to-house canvas was made round the village. By the spring of 1946 £540 had been accumulated. During this time the club had become indebted to the generosity of Captain A. Seymour Hoare, who on the 22nd January 1946 honoured an agreement reached three years earlier and sold to the cricket club, for a nominal fee of £15, land he owned behind the cricket pavilion, a stipulation being that it not be used for football, horse racing, trotting, dog racing or coursing. The club also acquired land in the embankment area from Andrew Hamer, and with all the legal formalities from these transactions out of the way an Appeals Committee was formed under the chairmanship of John Sofield, and with Mr. Harry Aspinall, a life member of the future, as secretary. This included all the contemporary cricket committee.

Some eighteen months later the Management Committee decided that a smaller body should replace the unwieldy Appeals Committee, and six cricket members were elected, with two members from each of the other two sections making the number up to ten. One of the cricket section members, Mr. John Holt, was to act as secretary. Mr. John Harrison acceded to a request to act as chairman to this newly formed group, who were to be known as the Memorial Committee. That is a brief outline of the events that led to the widening of the ground, and to the terracing and seating of the embankment, six and a half years, and many fund-raising efforts, after the ideas were first mooted.

In 1948 tenders had been invited for the erection of stands on the embankment, but the matter was not pursued, the cost no doubt being prohibitive. By the time work was to eventually start on the terracing, two quotes which still survive, though neither was accepted, were for £3,750 plus and £4,000 plus. So, with all other expenses that had been incurred, the £2,000 originally appealed for seems to have been an optimistically modest assessment.

On Saturday July 21st 1951, at the Bradshaw v. Heaton match, the extension of the cricket ground was dedicated, by the Rev. E. Bradshaw Clark, as a memorial to those who gave their lives in the Second Worls War. A wreath was laid by the cross on the terracing by Councillor Thomas Lomax, Chairman of the Cricket Club, Mr. Derek Boult, read out the names of the Fallen.

these years that had passed since the end of the war, so profitably devoted to the War Memorial ground improvements had shown a sharp decline in playing fortunes. The club with only two players left from the triumphant 1945 team, finished bottom of the league in 1948, and repeated the performance in 1949, with a record for the club of 15 Bolton League losses. Billy Baines was now the only link with the "double" side. The death of Col. Hardcastle in 1948 brought to and end his remarkable 46-year Presidency of the Club.

Miraculously, in 1950, without too much alteration to the strength of the side, the club were runners-up, although without ever really threatening Walkden. Much of the improvement stemmed from the bowling of two young amateurs, Harold Monkhouse and Bill Holt, both of whom averaged under 10 runs per wicket, Harold's slightly better figures winning him the League prize, whilst Bill had to content himself with the League catching prize. Left to his own devices the next season, Harold having moved on, Bill Holt made no mistake, and is at present the last Bradshaw player to have had the honour of winning the Bolton League bowling prize.

On May 2nd 1953, just about the time Kenneth Wolstenholme was roaring Stanley Mathews on to produce Blackpool's winning goal against Bolton Wanderers, in the cup final at Wembley, David Hindle, making his first appearance for the first team, was walking to the middle at Little Lever, as another debutante Denis Hobson, who as No. 10, was firmly established with three runs to his name. David managed to score a run and Denis added another two to his own total, when, perhaps as Hanson was retrieving the ball from the back of the Bolton net, David was caught and bowled. Who could imagine what pleasures these two sixteen year olds were to provide for cricket lovers? They were then 18 years away from sharing the club record stand of 190, when, now occupying more respectable Nos. 1 & 2 positions, they batted through the innings at Heaton.

Although no records survive to show why it was deemed advisable, and we now have the benefit of hindsight, it does seem to have been a monumental blunder to sell, as the season ended, the Rigby cottages, acquired with the ground in 1941 for £230 and £240.

The turnover in players at the club continued apace, and by 1954 only three of the 1950 side remained in the team. The league table after nine matches read as follows:

	P	W	L	D	Pts
Eagley	9	5	1	3	18
Horwich	9	4	1	4	16
Farnworth	9	4	3	2	14
Walkden	9	4	3	2	14
Westhoughton	9	4	3	2	14
Astley Bridge	9	4	4	1	13
Kearsley	9	4	4	1	13
Heaton	9	3	3	3	12
Tonge	9	3	4	2	11
Egerton	9	2	3	4	10
Bradshaw	9	2	5	2	8
Little Lever	9	1	6	2	5

There was not on the face of it, much interest left for Bradshaw. That a game, or in this case a championship, is never won until it is lost, is never more manifestly illustrated than in this season. Bradshaw did not lose another match, in fact winning 10 of the remaining 13 fixtures, and topping the league by two points. Incidentally Kearsley were second and Tonge third. Only Little Lever maintained any consistency.