Hertfordshire County Cricket Club

Hertfordshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Hertfordshire.

The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Championship 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.^[1]

The club is based at Balls Park, Hertford and also plays matches around the county at Cricket Field Lane in Bishop's Stortford, Long Marston, Brunton Memorial Ground in Radlett 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 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.

Hertfordshire 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".

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 very first season, 1895, and is the only one of the seven competing sides from that season to have maintained membership continuously ever since.

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.

Famous players

The following Hertfordshire cricketers also made an impact on the first-class game:

John Carr, sometime Middlesex player and son of Donald Carr
Jonathan Fellows-Smith, South African Test cricketer
Ian MacLaurin, Baron MacLaurin of Knebworth, businessman and head of the England and Wales Cricket Board
Jack Meyer, later Millfield School headmaster and captain of Somerset CCC
Trevor Morley
Gerald Smithson, 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.

External sources

Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
G B Buckley, Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket, Cotterell, 1935
E W Swanton (editor), Barclays World of Cricket, Guild, 1986
Playfair Cricket Annual – various editions
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack – various editions

Minor counties of English cricket

Western Division:	Berkshire Cheshire Cornwall Devon Dorset Herefordshire Oxfordshire Shropshire Wales Minor Counties Wiltshire

Eastern Division:	Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire Cumberland Hertfordshire Lincolnshire Norfolk Northumberland Staffordshire Suffolk

Former Minor counties:	Worcestershire Northamptonshire Glamorgan Durham

Defunct Minor counties:	Carmarthenshire Denbighshire Monmouthshire

Other Minor counties:	Huntingdonshire Isle of Wight

References

↑ "List A events played by Hertfordshire". CricketArchive. Retrieved 7 January 2016.

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