They haven't forgotten Shane Bond
They're still talking about fast bowler Shane Bond in North Lancashire league cricket.
The Cricket Paper in England has carried an extract from a book, Sticky Dogs and Stardust by Scott Oliver, that has just been published and features lesser-known stories from the game's lower levels.
Bond had his second stint in English club cricket with the Furness club in Barrow in England's north-west, four years after an unpaid stint with Wembley while working as a bricklayer's labourer, a nine-week position that ended with a stress fracture of the back.
It wasn't so much an inspired decision for Furness to employ him. The club chairman at the time described it as 'an absolute gamble'. Five other candidates had fallen through.
But the club had been through hard times and had not won its league for 19 years. Its rival, Barrow CC, had won 17 titles and 10 cups, the league's second most successful club.
Thirty games comprised the season, and they started on April 17 at Penrith.
Bond related his story: "I spoke to Robin Dunn [club chairman] before coming and asked what the temperature was like up there. He said, 'You're probably going to want to pack a long-sleeve jersey'. First game, there were actual snowflakes falling when we started."
Bond was undeterred. He took 4-43 and scored 70 not out in his side's eight-wicket win.
The club felt they were onto something. He hit eight half-centuries for the side during the season.
A former Furness pro who had played Ranji Trophy cricket with Mumbai and was good enough to have a 49.38 average, Alan Sippy, who had also hit 2004 runs in a league record five years earlier, was talking to Dunn back at their club.
"Robin asked me, 'How's this new professional?' I said, 'Robin, we'll win the league'. He looked at me as if to say, 'Are you f**king mad?!' I said, 'Robin, believe me. We'll win the league. This guy's f**king good. This kind of pace is not what you see every day.' He was special. I knew it straight away."
Bond said he was happy making a solid start.
"At first, you're just trying to make an impression.
"You're walking into the unknown. You have no idea what the standard is, and they had no idea who the hell I was. I was lucky that first game went well.
"I remember Alan said to me afterwards, 'We're going to win this league' and sort of going, 'Oh, okay'."
The following week was the side's first home game – a seven-wicket win. In the next three games, Bond took consecutive six-wicket hauls at a cost of only 87 runs.
The first bag, against Cleator, convinced the Furness captain Marcus Fisher they were onto something.
"We'd watched other teams have quick bowlers and us turn up at their ground and be intimidated. We always felt this was the missing piece in our armory. The game at Cleator, he bowled a guy who always got runs for us: Ian Clark. He just absolutely cleaned him up. That was when I thought, 'This guys is good. He's going to make the difference and help us win the league'."
The third six-wicket bag was against an Ulverston side that had dismissed Furness for 75. Bond's response before they fielded was, 'No sweat lads, let's go and sort them out'.
Ulverstone went from 36-4 to 36-9, eventually all out for 55. Bond's figures? 15-6-19-6.
Furness had won five games from five, and Bond had 25 wickets, only three of which were not bowled or lbw.
His feats and his name soon had the headline writers salivating.
"'The Name's Bond', 'Live and Let Fly', 'A View to a Thrill' and 'The Man with the Golden Ton'.
Bond said in one interview that he didn't think players in the league were used to quick bowling.
That was evident when he finished with 118 wickets for the club, breaking a 70-year-old record for the Northern Lancashire League.
And how did Furness do in the competition? They won.
And all this was 18 months before Bond made his indelible mark on the international scene.