Hertfordshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

clubs within the domestic

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

structure of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. It represents the historic county of

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For gov ...

. The team is currently a member of the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

Eastern Division and plays in the MCCA Knockout Trophy. Hertfordshire played List A matches occasionally from 1964 until 2004 but is not classified as a List A team ''per se''. The club is based at Balls Park, Hertford and also plays matches around the county at

Cricket Field Lane Cricketfield Lane is a cricket ground in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. The earliest recorded match on the ground was in 1862 between Bishop's Stortford and an All-England Eleven. In 1895 Hertfordshire played their first Minor Counties Cham ...

Bishop's Stortford Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, just west of the M11 motorway on the county boundary with Essex, north-east of central London, and by rail from Liverpool Street station. Stortford had an estimated popu ...

, Long Marston,

Brunton Memorial Ground Brunton Memorial Ground is a cricket ground at Radlett in Hertfordshire. The ground is the home of Radlett Cricket Club and, since 2013, has been used as an outground by Middlesex County Cricket Club. It was used occasionally by Hertfordshire Co ...

Radlett Radlett is a village in Hertfordshire, England, between Elstree and St Albans on Watling Street, with a population of 8,042. It is in the council district of Hertsmere in the south of the county, and is covered by two wards; Aldenham East an ...

and North Mymms.

Honours

* Minor Counties Championship (4) - 1936, 1975, 1983, 1990; shared (0) - * MCCA Knockout Trophy (1) - 1984

Earliest cricket

Cricket must have reached Hertfordshire by the end of the 17th century. The earliest reference to cricket in the county is dated 1732 and is also the earliest reference to

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

as a county team. On Thursday 6 July 1732, a team called Essex & Hertfordshire played London Cricket Club at Epping Forest "for £50 a side". The result is unknown.Buckley, ''Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket'', p. 6.ACS, ''Important Matches'', p. 20.

was never considered a first-class county but its teams did appear frequently throughout the 18th century and played against some teams that were normally considered first-class, so there must have been times when the status of a Hertfordshire match was "borderline". On 22 June 1814, Hertfordshire played against the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influe ...

in the first match to be staged on the current Lord's ground. This fixture was repeated in 2014 to mark the

bicentennial __NOTOC__ A bicentennial or bicentenary is the two-hundredth anniversary of a part, or the celebrations thereof. It may refer to: Europe * French Revolution bicentennial, commemorating the 200th anniversary of 14 July 1789 uprising, celebrated ...

of the ground.

Origin of club

There were a number of county organisations in the 18th century and one in 1838. The present Hertfordshire CCC was founded on 8 March 1876. It joined the Minor Counties Championship for the first season, 1895, and is the only one of the seven competing sides from that season to have maintained membership continuously ever since.Barclays, p. 490.

Club history

Hertfordshire has won the Minor Counties Championship four times, in 1936, 1975, 1983 and 1990. Hertfordshire has won the MCCA Knockout Trophy once since its inception in 1983. It won in 1984.

Notable players

The following Hertfordshire cricketers also made an impact on the first-class game: * John Carr, sometime Middlesex player and son of Donald Carr * Bill Coleman, 619 wickets in minor counties cricket * Jonathan Fellows-Smith, South African Test cricketer *

Ian MacLaurin, Baron MacLaurin of Knebworth Ian Charter MacLaurin, Baron MacLaurin of Knebworth (born 30 March 1937) is a British businessman, who has been chairman of Vodafone and chairman and chief executive of Tesco. He is a former chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, a fo ...

, businessman and head of the England and Wales Cricket Board *

Jack Meyer John Robert Meyer (March 23, 1932 – March 6, 1967) was an American professional baseball right-handed pitcher, who appeared in all or parts of seven Major League (MLB) seasons (1955–1961) with the Philadelphia Phillies. Born in Philade ...

, later

Millfield School Millfield is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) located in Street, Somerset, England. It was founded in 1935. Millfield is a registered charity and is the largest co-educational boarding schoo ...

headmaster and captain of Somerset CCC * Trevor Morley *

Gerald Smithson Gerald Arthur Smithson (1 November 1926 – 6 September 1970) was an English cricketer who played in two Tests for England in 1947–48. He was born at Spofforth, West Riding of Yorkshire and died at Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Life and career S ...

, Yorkshire, Leicestershire and England Test cricketer * Joseph (Joe) Thorley, played for Gentlemen v Players in 1925 in same team as the Gilligans & Wally Hammond. Captained Herts CCC. * Steven Thomas Finn (born 4 April 1989). He is a right-arm fast bowler who at the age of 16 became Middlesex County Cricket Club's youngest-ever debutant in first-class cricket. He made his England Test debut in 2010 against Bangladesh. He has a bowling strike rate of around 50, one of the best for England bowlers. *

Mark Ilott Mark Christopher Ilott (born 27 August 1970) is a former English professional cricketer. Having previously played with the minor county Hertfordshire, Ilott began his career with Essex in 1988. A left-arm swing bowler in the mould of John L ...

was the county's youngest debutant aged 16 before going on to open the bowling for Essex for 15 years. He was also capped for England, playing against Australia and South Africa.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * Playfair Cricket Annual – various editions *

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

– various editions

External links

Hertfordshire County Cricket Club website

Minor Counties Cricket Association Official Site
{{minor counties National Counties cricket History of Hertfordshire Cricket clubs established in 1876 Cricket in Hertfordshire 1876 establishments in England