The Bradford Premier League (currently known as the Gordon Rigg Bradford Premier League for sponsorship reasons) is an amateur cricket competition centred in Bradford, West Yorkshire. It has been described as "arguably England's strongest amateur competition." This is despite most people being aware that top clubs have player wage bills in the 5 figure brackets. The league is structured into four divisions. Many teams are from Bradford, with others from neighbouring towns and cities across West Yorkshire. The league was renamed the Bradford Premier League in 2016, upon the merger of the Bradford Cricket League and the Central Yorkshire Cricket League, and since 2016 it has been a designated ECB Premier League. Since 2016, the winners qualify to take part in the Yorkshire Championship, together with the winners of the Yorkshire Premier League North and the Yorkshire South Premier League, and the leading Yorkshire club in the North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League. Hanging Heaton won the Yorkshire Championship in 2017, the only team from the Bradford League to do so thus far. History The Bradford Cricket League was formed in 1903 with twelve clubs but only two (Undercliffe and Bankfoot) of the inaugural twelve are current members. The first club to win the Bradford Cricket League was Shelf, in 1903, claiming their only League title. In total, the League has had twenty-six different winners of its top division. The most successful clubs are Bradford CC and Pudsey St Lawrence CC, with 10 titles each. The turn of the century saw the domination of Pudsey Congs and Woodlands within the top division. Pudsey Congs won five consecutive titles between 2000 and 2004, and Woodlands won the following four titles. In 2016, The Bradford Cricket League merged with the Central Yorkshire League to form the Bradford Premier League. Until then, the League had operated as two divisions, but this format was expanded to four divisions to accommodate the extra teams. The League runs two cup competitions for the first and second teams of every club within the League. The first team competition is the Priestley Cup, which has been running since 1904, and the second team competition is the Priestley Shield, which has been running since 1913. Both the Cup and Shield are named for Sir William Priestley, who donated the presentation trophies for which the competitions are played. The only club ever to have won the Cup three times