The 1911-12 season saw a return to club cricket, which had operated prior to the introduction of district cricket in 1903.
For the first time for two seasons a senior competition was conducted with six teams participating: Morpeth, Northern Division, School of Arts, I Zingari, Lochinvar and Branxton. Following the first match, Branxton withdrew and was replaced by Cessnock. The competition, which was later reported as being “much keener and more interesting than it had been for a number of years”, was won by Morpeth.
Cricket interest was also revived when Maitland was set down as the venue for a match on December 22 and 23 1911 between a Northern District XI and Pelham Warner’s MCC touring team, which included the famous opening pair of Wilfred Rhodes and Jack Hobbs. However, this was followed by disappointment when D Glasheen, the HRDCA Secretary was advised that the MCC “could not see their way clear to play the match”.
The representative season was still a crowded one. Inter-district matches were played against Newcastle, Singleton, Upper Hunter and the Allyn River. In addition, fixtures were arranged against a strong Sydney University team (including State players EP Barbour and CJ Tozer) at the start of the season; against a combined Cumberland and Burwood team (captained by E F Waddy) on the Anniversary weekend; and against W Cullen’s Metropolitan XI (consisting mainly of Glebe first grade players) at Easter.
RW Mclæan, who played for the I Zingari Club, had a strong all round performance in the representative matches. He scored 255 runs in 7 innings and took 25 wickets at an average of 2’2.8.
At the end of the season D (“Dinny”) Glasheen, who had been Secretary of the Association for the past ten seasons from 1902-12, announced his retirement. High tribute was paid to him for the work that he had done for the Association.