Yorkshire open their programme next season with an Easter visit to Bradford Park Avenue in what may be their final appearance on the famous old ground.

They play Bradford-Leeds Universities' Centre of Excellence in a three-day match starting on Easter Saturday, April 10, and they are unlikely to return to the venue again if the Centre go ahead with their plan to move their headquarters from the Avenue to Leeds University's ground at Weetwood in 2005.

Yorkshire begin their Frizzell County Championship programme on April 21 with a tough match at Headingley against Essex who were relegated at the end of last season and both sides are desperate to get back in the top flight again.

Somerset will be Yorkshire's opponents in the Championship and National League at Scarborough over five days from July 21 while Durham should ensure big support for both counties at the Scarborough Cricket Festival, the Championship game starting on Wednesday, September 1 and the National League fixture being played on the following Sunday.

Yorkshire have not played Middlesex at Lord's since 1998 and there will be disappointment among the fans that they are to be denied the opportunity of visiting headquarters again next summer - unless Yorkshire reach the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy final.

Yorkshire requested that the National League game between the sides on August 1 should be staged at Lord's but Middlesex have decided to take the match to Southgate.

In the Twenty20 Cup group stages, Yorkshire meet Leicestershire and Lancashire at Headingley and travel to Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Durham.

Yorkshire will play their National League game against Derbyshire at Headingley under floodlights and their match with Leicestershire at Grace Road will also be a day-night affair.

Headingley will stage the second Test between England and New Zealand, starting on June 3, and England's NatWest Series game with the West Indies on the ground on July 1 will be floodlit.

Fred Trueman, Brian Close and Ray Illingworth were among the great players of Yorkshire's past who attended Headingley yesterday for the launch of the book, No Coward Soul, which tells the gripping story of their old colleague, Bob Appleyard.

The biography, written by Stephen Chalke and Derek Hodgson, reveals the triumphs and tragedies in the life of the 79-year-old former Yorkshire and England bowler, the only player in the history of first-class cricket to take 200 wickets in his first full season.

Also among the guests was 92-year-old Geoffrey Wooler, the surgeon who removed the diseased part of Appleyard's left lung, ravaged by tuberculosis, over 50 years' ago.

Appleyard told his audience that Yorkshire CCC was in a financial mess and things were no better on the field of play, but those responsible for running the club faced a mammoth task in sorting out the problems and they needed everyone's support.

The Sir Leonard Hutton Foundation had provided facilities and equipment for tens of thousands of Yorkshire youngsters who were the seedcorn of the county's future success and Appleyard said he was donating his share of the proceeds from the book to the Foundation's 'Enjoy Cricket' scheme which helped youngsters to take up and enjoy the game.

Updated: 10:09 Thursday, November 27, 2003