Runaway bull forces Burnopfield cricket match to be abandoned

A cricket match had to be abandoned after a runaway bull stormed the playing field and charged at players.

The North East Premier League fixture at Burnopfield Cricket Club was called off on Saturday evening despite efforts to remove the animal from the ground.

Club director Martin Oswell said it was an important match, adding: "At first it was quite novel, it was quite funny, but we never thought it was going to impact on our game being abandoned."

Oswell said the bull's owner drove a cow to the cricket club in an effort to entice the animal off the field, but to no avail. Police were eventually called to the scene before the bull left "of its own accord", he said.

Oswell said the young bull, probably weighing about 800kg (126 stone), had escaped from a farm and travelled about a mile (1.6km) to the playing field where it arrived at around 15:00 BST.

"There was no chance that the game was going to restart before the cut-off time."

"The farmer who owned the bull arrived at the ground and tried at first to sort of cajole it and get it into a pen, but it failed," Oswell said.

"The bull was very frightened, it was spooked."

He said there were safety concerns as the bull could be seen charging at players as farmers attempted to recapture it.

"Two farmers tried to stop the bull and it actually hit one of them," Oswell said.

"He was OK but I mean the beast probably weighed about 800kg.

"It was a juvenile bull, incredibly fit, athletic, quite frankly, it was quite dangerous."

Burnopfield Cricket Club had scored 226 runs against Hetton Lyons when the match was interrupted.

"We're second top of the North East Premier League, so it was an important game for us," Oswell said.

"And it was a game that I think we had a really good chance of winning.

"It would have been a really, really good game of cricket."

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