Andrew Flintoff's children set to feature for St Annes CC this season

More than 30 years after he played his first game for the club as a junior, two of Andrew Flintoff’s children are set to feature this weekend.

Corey and Rocky Flintoff are in line to figure for the second XI in their home game against Great Eccleston.

It’s a path Flintoff senior knows well, having first featured for St Annes in 1989 before making his first XI debut aged 14 – and then returning in 2014 ahead of his comeback to the county game with Lancashire.

Club chairman John Cotton explained: “It’s a bit of kudos for the club.

“They have signed on to play senior cricket and are both in the Lancashire junior set-up.

“It’s more than 30 years now since Andrew joined but he contacted me last week and said he was thinking of bringing his boys over to play at St Annes.

“It’s a great coup for the club and it shows he obviously holds the club in high regard.

“If they perform and they are good enough – and the opportunities arise – then we’ll see how it goes.”

Following in the footsteps of a high-profile parent brings its own pressures, not least when their father is one of English cricket’s top names.

“I think he tries to keep them away from as much pressure as possible but they must be very talented like he is,” Cotton added.

“We just have to make sure they are well looked after by our coaches and the captains.”

St Annes’ new arrivals provide another talking point going into a season some may have thought wouldn’t happen.

The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent government advice meant there were doubts as to whether recreational clubs would play at all in 2020.

However, the easing of restrictions has allowed for some play, even if it wasn’t the league competition anticipated at the beginning of the year.

Instead, teams from the Northern Premier League and Moore and Smalley Palace Shield will compete in localised round-robin leagues over the next two months.

Northern League trio St Annes, Blackpool and Fleetwood are all in Group A, along with Palace Shield club Thornton Cleveleys and Liverpool Competition outfit Lytham, who have been given permission to join given the travel issues involved in entering a similar competition organised by their league.

The 40-over event will be played under strict guidelines, meaning it will be a learning curve for everybody.

“There are a lot of rules and regulations we have to stick to,” Cotton said.

“It isn’t going to be as easy as it seems because players have to come ready to play, they have to bring their own food and drink, there’s no dressing room – things like that.

“We are looking forward to it though because we have a lot of talented youngsters who will be getting the opportunity to play.

“Some of the older guys perhaps might not want to play under the present circumstances, so it opens up the door for some of the younger ones.

“We need to keep them engaged because a lot of them practice through the winter, looking forward to the season.

“When you’re a teenager, all you want to do is play but they’ve had all these obstacles put in front of them and had a year taken off their career.”

This weekend’s opening fixtures in Group A are Blackpool v St Annes and Thornton Cleveleys v Fleetwood.

As there are five teams in this group, one goes without a game each Saturday.