Norfolk County Cricket Club

Norfolk County Cricket Club
Norfolk CCC v Cumberland CCC (July 2008)
Captain:	George Walker
Founded:	1876
Home ground:	Manor Park, Horsford
Minor Counties wins:	5 (including 2 shared)
MCCA Trophy wins:	5
Official website:	Norfolk CCC

Norfolk County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Norfolk and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy.

The club played all its home matches in 2006 and 2007 at Manor Park, Horsford, Norwich,^[1] but the Common, North Runcton, Kings Lynn is also sometimes used.^[2]

The Minor Counties play three-day matches at a level below that of the first-class game. At present, Norfolk competes in the Eastern Division of the Minor Counties Championship.

Honours

• Minor Counties Championship (3) - 1905, 1910, 1913; shared (2) - 1895, 2002
• MCCA Knockout Trophy (5) - 1986, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009

Earliest cricket

Cricket may have reached Norfolk by the end of the 17th century. The earliest reference to cricket in the county is dated 1745.

The first county match was Norfolk v Suffolk at Bury St Edmunds Race Course on Thursday 23 August 1764, which was won by Norfolk. This was reported in the Gazetteer & London Daily Advertiser on Tuesday 28 August. More games against Suffolk followed.

Origin of club

A number of county organisations existed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The present club was founded on 14 October 1876.

Club history

The first major Norfolk Club of the 19th century was that based at Holt and the famous Norfolk v MCC match of 1820, in which William Ward made 278, was in fact the Holt Club with EH Budd, Thomas Vigne and Felix Ladbroke as given men. This was a "borderline" match in terms of its status but, because of its historical importance it is rated first-class. In any case, the addition of the three given men raised the standard of the Holt/Norfolk team above the general run of Holt matches. The Holt club declined from the mid-1820s.

After that, the centre of county cricket was Norwich and a prominent club was founded there on 11 January 1827. For a few seasons, prior to Fuller Pilch's departure for Kent about 1835, Norfolk could put a fairly strong eleven into the field. Their only major county opponent, however, was Sheffield Cricket Club (playing as Yorkshire) and the five games they played in 1833, 1834 (twice), 1835 and 1836 are rated first-class.

Apart from the games against Yorkshire, the main opponents of the Norwich/Norfolk team were Bury/Suffolk and MCC. These games however were not quite in the class of the Yorkshire matches and are not rated first-class. Norfolk played Cambridge Town Club (aka Cambridgeshire) in the 1840s but Norfolk generally fared very poorly and by 1852 the county had ceased to play even MCC.

After the present club was founded in 1876, the county did not again aspire to first-class status and it joined the Minor Counties Championship when it was formed in 1895. It missed the 1896 season, and also did not compete in 1902 and 1903, but otherwise has remained at that level ever since.

Norfolk has won the Minor Counties Championship five times, two of them shared. It won the first Championship in 1895, sharing with Durham and Worcestershire. It won outright in 1905, 1910 and 1913. Its most recent success was a shared title with Herefordshire in 2002.

Norfolk has won the MCCA Knockout Trophy a record five times since its inception in 1983. It won in 1986, 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2009.

First-class players

The following Norfolk cricketers also played first-class cricket:

• Fuller Pilch
• Michael Falcon
• Bill Edrich
• John Edrich
• Geoff Edrich
• Eric Edrich
• Michael Barton
• Henry Blofeld
• Peter Parfitt
• Clive Radley
• Paul Taylor

Current squad

The Norfolk squad for the 2011 season comprised the following players:

• George Walker (captain)
• Sam Arthurton
• Chris Borrett
• Paul Bradshaw
• Chris Brown
• Keiran Bunting
• Harry Bush
• Luke Caswell
• Michael Eccles
• Stephen Gray
• Peter Lambert
• Carl Rogers
• Darren Smith
• James Spelman
• Oli Stone
• Trevor Ward
• Matthew Warnes
• Michael Warnes
• Aaron Watson
• Ashley Watson

References

1. ^ Fixture list in Playfair Cricket Annual, 2006.
2. ^ Norfolk CCC website

External sources

• Norfolk County Cricket Club
• Minor Counties Cricket Association Official Site

Further reading

• Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
• E W Swanton (editor), Barclays World of Cricket, Guild, 1986

• Playfair Cricket Annual – various editions
• Wisden Cricketers Almanack – various editions