This portrait of an amateur Rugby League team maintained by Keighley switchmakers NSF in the 1960s was supplied by Michael Shearing, of High Spring Gardens Lane, who played by virtue of his mother working at NSF and is the end player standing on the right. He has also contributed some interesting sociological details.

"The team played in a Bradford league," he recalls, "and trained and played their matches in the Marley sports grounds. At times, players trained in the NSF building, putting the many steps to good use for exercise. The team subsequently changed its name to Worth Village."

In cup ties they were sometimes drawn against teams from as far afield as Hull and Doncaster. "The matches with distant teams were the pick of the bunch," says Mr Shearing, "visiting pubs and clubs afterwards. Our best evening was at a club at Sprotborough, near Doncaster, where we had a jovial time listening to singer Vince Hill."

He remembers this photograph being taken at the Lawkholme Lane ground in the early 1960s, just before a match against a Halifax team. The captain, Vince Jackson, kneels in the centre with the ball, while Derek Constantine, who ran the club, stands on the far right.

© 2002, Ian Dewhirst, Keighley News