Macclesfield Cricket Club Ground is a

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

ground in Victoria Road,

Macclesfield Macclesfield () is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is sited on the River Bollin and the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east; the town lies south of Ma ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. A small ground, it is bordered to the east by Macclesfield District General Hospital and to the south and west by housing. The ground is used by Macclesfield Cricket Club.

Field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

and

lawn bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which players try to roll their ball (called a bowl) closest to a smaller ball (known as a "jack" or sometimes a "kitty"). The bowls are shaped (biased), so that they follow a curve ...

are also played at the ground.

History

Macclesfield Cricket Club has been in existence for over 180 years, though where the club originally played is unknown. The first recorded match on the current ground came in Cheshire's first match there in the 1921

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship or National County 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 counties (previously ca ...

against

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

. Cheshire played an annual Minor Counties Championship at the ground until 1931.

Minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket did not return to the ground until 1949, when Cheshire played the Worcestershire Second XI in the Minor Counties Championship. Cheshire played annually at the ground throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It was in the

1966 Gillette Cup The 1966 Gillette Cup was the fourth Friends Provident Trophy, Gillette Cup, an English limited overs cricket, limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 28 April and 3 September 1966. The tournament was won by Warwickshire Count ...

that the ground held its first

List A List A cricket is a classification of the Limited overs cricket, limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competit ...

match when Cheshire played first-class opponents in the form of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

. Two further List A matches were held there in the

1968 Gillette Cup The 1968 Gillette Cup was the sixth Gillette Cup, an English limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 27 April and 7 September 1968. The tournament was won by Warwickshire County Cricket Club who defeated Sussex County Cricket ...

, with Cheshire defeating

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

in a first round match, but losing to

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

in the second round. A final List A match was held there in 1974, when the ground was selected as a home venue for

Minor Counties North The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

in the

Benson & Hedges Cup The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals. It was the third major one-day competition established in Engla ...

, with Lancashire as the visitors. The ground continued to host Minor Counties Championship matches during the 1970s, with the final Minor Counties Championship match held in 1982. In 1983, the ground held the first final of the

MCCA Knockout Trophy The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

, which saw Cheshire triumph over

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...

. A second MCCA Knockout Trophy match was held in 1984, with

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

as the visitors. This was the last time the ground was used by Cheshire. In latter years, the ground has had to contend with deteriorating facilities. In 2003, plans were drawn up for Macclesfield Cricket Club to sell the ground for development and move to a new ground along London Road. However these plans failed to come to fruition. In 2011, plans were drawn up to transform the ground into one of the leading leisure facilities in Cheshire, with the undertaking of an £800,000 redevelopment project.

Records

List A

* Highest team total: 212/9 (59.4 overs) by

, 1968 * Lowest team total: 62 all out (45.3 overs) by Cheshire v

, 1966 * Highest individual innings: 73 by Graham Saville for Norfolk v Cheshire, 1968 * Best bowling in an innings: 4/10 by

Ken Higgs Kenneth Higgs (14 January 1937 – 7 September 2016) was an English fast-medium bowler, who was most successful as the opening partner to Brian Statham with Lancashire in the 1960s. He later played with success for Leicestershire. Cricket w ...

for

v Cheshire, 1966

Gallery

File:Macclesfield Cricket Club (2).JPG, File:Macclesfield Cricket Club (5).JPG, File:Macclesfield Cricket Club (18).JPG, File:Macclesfield Cricket Club (7).JPG, File:Macclesfield Cricket Club (23).JPG,

References

External links

{{Commons category, Macclesfield Cricket Club
Macclesfield Cricket Club Ground
at CricketArchive

at

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