Cardiff Cricket Club is a

cricket club Club cricket is a mainly amateur, but still formal form of the sport of cricket, usually involving teams playing in competitions at weekends or in the evening. There is a great deal of variation in game format although the Laws of Cricket are obse ...

based in

Whitchurch, Cardiff Whitchurch () is a suburb and community in the north of Cardiff, capital of Wales. It is approximately 3 miles north of the centre of the city on the A470 road and A4054 road. It falls within the Whitchurch & Tongwynlais ward. The population of ...

, Wales. It was established in 1819 and forms the cricket section of

Cardiff Athletic Club Cardiff Athletic Club (CAC) is a multi-sport club based in Cardiff, Wales. It is the owner of the Cardiff Arms Park site, however, it is also a major shareholder of Cardiff Rugby Football Club Ltd and therefore has a large influence over t ...

with its headquarters at

Cardiff Arms Park Cardiff Arms Park (), also known as The Arms Park, is primarily a rugby union stadium, and also has a bowling green. It is situated in Cardiff, Wales, next to the Millennium Stadium. The Arms Park was host to the 1958 British Empire and Common ...

. The first team plays in the South Wales Premier Cricket League. It is one of the oldest sporting organisations in the whole of Wales.

History

Cardiff Cricket Club was established in 1819. The club initially played on various cricket grounds, mostly in eastern Cardiff, due to better drainage. The club then moved to

, but it was more of a

gentlemen's club A gentlemen's club is a private social club of a type originally established by males from Britain's upper classes starting in the 17th century. Many countries outside Britain have prominent gentlemen's clubs, mostly those associated with the ...

, rather than a

sports club A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports. Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...

. By 1867 the Bute Estate agreed that the cricket club could rent the eastern part of the Arms Park at only one

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

per annum. By April 1875 the Bute Estate decided to restrict access to the Arms Park to Cardiff Cricket Club and other recognised clubs. In 1922 Cardiff Football Club, later renamed Cardiff Rugby Football Club and Cardiff Cricket Club

amalgamated Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form. Amalgamation, amalgam, and other derivatives may refer to: Mathematics and science * Amalgam (chemistry), the combination of mercury with another metal **Pan ama ...

to form the

. There had been previous attempts to merge the clubs, in November 1892 and between 1902 and 1904, when the two clubs worked closely to fund a new pavilion to serve the needs of both clubs, but it was not until 1922 that the merger finally took place. Later the Cardiff Arms Park Company Limited was formed by Cardiff Athletic Club, Arms Park (Cardiff) Greyhound Racing Company Limited and the

Welsh Rugby Union The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU; ) is the governing body of rugby union in the country of Wales, recognised by the sport's international governing body, World Rugby. The WRU is responsible for the running of rugby in Wales, overseeing 320 member clu ...

(WRU) acquired the land from the Bute Estate for £30,000 (GBP), but on the understanding that the Arms Park was only used for recreational purposes and was not sold for building. The cricket section of the Athletic Club acquired a 99 lease from the company at a rental of £200 per annum, with

Glamorgan County Cricket Club Glamorgan County Cricket Club () is one of eighteen first-class cricket, first-class county cricket, county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the Historic counties of Wales, historic county of Gla ...

paying rent for the use of the park for county cricket. The existing wooden cricket and rugby pavilion had been demolished and new changing rooms included in the new North Stand. In 1937 a new cricket pavilion was built for the cricket section of Cardiff Athletic Club. By the mid 1950s improvements meant that the capacity of the cricket ground had increased to around 15,000, although the ground was still very small and often visiting teams agreed to the boundaries being shortened so that people could sit on the grass. Cardiff Athletic Club however wanted to develop new facilities for both the bowls and tennis sections, and did not allow new seating to be erected just for county games. A new scheme was developed to change the existing rugby ground into the National Stadium, and creating a smaller ground for Cardiff R.F.C. on the existing cricket ground, with the cricket section of Cardiff Athletic Club moving to

Sophia Gardens Sophia Gardens ( ; ) is a public park in Riverside, Cardiff, Wales, on the west bank of the River Taff. International test cricket Test cricket is a Forms of cricket, format of the sport of cricket, considered the game’s most prestig ...

. Cardiff Cricket Club played their final game at Cardiff Arms Park against Lydney Cricket Club on 17 September 1966. In 1998, Cardiff Athletic Club sold the Sophia Gardens ground to

and the cricket section of Cardiff Athletic Club (Cardiff Cricket Club) for many years had no fixed cricket ground, while they were looking for a suitable cricket ground. In 1997 the club moved to their permanent home of the Diamond cricket ground at Forest Farm,

and by July 2007 a new pavilion had been built on the ground. Cardiff Cricket Club have won the South Wales Premier Cricket League in both 2009 and 2011.

Notes

External links

* {{Authority control Club cricket teams in Wales 1819 establishments in Wales Cricket clubs established in the 1810s Sport in Cardiff Organisations based in Cardiff

History

See also

Notes

External links