KEITH Roscoe is one of crickets great survivors; an echo of the time when the senior professional was a power, a respected figure and an accepted role model within the league game.

It is odd to think that of him, though, for the Lancashire League’s greatest amateur bowler retains much of the boyish perkiness of days when he was an enthusiastic junior at Bacup.

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We meet on a sun-dappled afternoon in the hullabaloo of Buffers Bar, and Rawtenstall’s real ale emporium at the terminus of the East Lancashire Railway is doing brisk business.

People stop to greet him, keen to know if he will be twirling his arm again at the Worswick Memorial Ground next season, Rawtenstall’s home, and it is clear that Roscoe, 54 next month, is keen to keep on rolling to new destinations.

“I’m a lot nearer to picking up my pension book than my 21st birthday, but do you know what, I feel as hungry as I did twenty years ago – I’ll be playing next season,” said Roscoe, sporting a London Calling Clash shirt.

But more of his love of punk music a little later.

Roscoe said: “When I retired eight years ago, I’d had enough.

“I thought ‘I can’t do this any more’, so I gave my kit in.

“I went walking over the lovely hills we have in the valley with the missus at weekends, visited a few shopping malls, and then Rawtenstall’s captain, Peter Hanson, called.

“He said the kids were shell-shocked, and would I come back.

“I’d missed my cricket fix too much, so six weeks later I strapped on my bowling boots again.

“It would be hard for me to live without cricket because the game has been very kind to me.”

Roscoe is an unassuming and modest man. He is easy company and deflects talk of his blizzard of records and achievements as easily as his slow-left arm deliveries have ripped through batting orders for nearly forty years.

But while statistics are by no means always the true criterion of a cricketer, Roscoe’s do him justice.

They are remarkable and certainly every worthwhile batsman in the league respects it.

Thumb through the Lancashire League archives and you get the picture.

Roscoe is already way out in front as the leading wicket-taker in league history with 1,682 wickets.

This season, he clocked up another noteworthy chapter, his match-winning perfomance against Ramsbottom last month completed a five-wicket haul against every team in the league.

Rawtenstall wrap up their campaign against Lowerhouse tomorrow with Roscoe having reeled in 68 league scalps this term, meaning he has passed 50 wickets in a season for the 17th time.

His wickets were not simply statistically important but constantly valuable.

His record becomes the more amazing as that of man who could never be nursed or given the statistical encouragement of a few cheap wickets at the tail end of an innings.

Test greats Shane Warne, Roger Harper, Steve Waugh, Vivian Richards, and former Australian captain Michael Clarke have all been bamboozled by Roscoe’s ‘arm ball.’ When I ask him to recall his senior league debut against Burnley, 36 years ago on a breezy June day at Lanehead, he twists his gnarled fingers together as if thinking about the first of many scalps he has delivered.

“My first wicket was a chap called Roland Harrison, I think, caught at extra cover.”

And the wickets just kept coming, for nearly four decades now, and he said: “I never had any targets in mind.

“I’m not a great one for looking back, but I’m just a failed batsman who came good with the ball and that does irk me a bit.”

He himself will best remember the 2000 season when his 91 wickets for Rawtenstall overhauled Tom Waller’s bowling record that had stood unchallenged since 1928.

Again it was versus Burnley, as Roscoe recalled: “Dave Sharrock was at the non-striker’s end and I said to him, ‘This is the arm ball, watch it fly.

“A stump popped out and Sharrock just looked at me, shook my hand and said, ‘I can’t believe that Keith.’ That was a nice moment.”

His bowling so impressed Australian Steve Waugh, the Aussie run machine recommended him to Somerset following a successful trial with Gloucestershire, who wanted to sign him.

“I had a five year old child, a mortgage, and I just couldn’t afford to take a pay cut.

“Anyway, I had booked a fortnight’s holiday at my dad’s caravan in Poulton-Le-Fylde and I’d promised my good lady that we would go.

“I had a go, but I never made a big deal about not playing county cricket.”

While he enjoys the colourful banter of cricket, he does not need to sledge to trap his opponents and remains philosophical.

“My job is to get batsmen out, not to get in a parliamentary debate with them.

“When I walk to the wicket wearing a floppy hat the kids go, ‘Where’s your helmet Kes?

“I say, ‘Listen lads, you can’t frighten me - I’ve been hit by the best in the world.

“When somebody smashes me over the fence and into the mill I don’t worry.

“It is not a life-changing event is it?

“You’ve got to be strong, sure, but if I get a mauling I just have a pint afterwards and forget it.”

He admits Accrington’s Graham Lloyd, Lancashire’s former England batsman, always provided one of his sternest tests.

West Indian Tony Merrick was the fastest he saw and Australian seamer Adam Dale the best bowling pro he has seen in the league.

“Merrick had searing pace, while Dale was virtually unplayable with his late swing.”

Away from the game Roscoe works in the family business, Europe’s number one manufacturer of racing pigeon accessories he tells me and when he really lets his hair down, he sings and strums the guitar in punk band Rifleman of War.

He shows me a clip of them playing The Ramones’ Judy is a Punk Rocker’ at breakneck speed.

“Great music like The Clash, The Stranglers, The Adverts inspires my life as much as cricket does,” he adds.

“There will be a time when I become an embarrassment on the field, and I’m already a walking wicket these days.

“But I’ve played cricket all over the world on a shoestring, and until that time comes then I’ll continue to enjoy our great game.”