Several Nottingham Cricket Club matches have been recorded from 1771 to 1848 and its team generally held important match status in eleven-a-side matches, depending on the quality of their opponents. The earliest reference to cricket in the county of Nottinghamshire is a match between Nottingham and Sheffield Cricket Club at the Forest Racecourse, Nottingham in August 1771. In many sources, the Nottingham team is called the "Nottingham Old Club" or as the "town club" to distinguish it from Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, which was founded in 1841. A team called Nottinghamshire had played since 1835 but is believed to have been organised by the town club and only using the county name in certain matches.
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Nottingham's opponents in their important matches were most often Sheffield. They played several games against Leicestershire & Rutland a.k.a. Leicester. They had two matches against Cambridge Town Club, one against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and one against a combined Leicester/Sheffield team.
Nottinghamshire as a county team played its first inter-county match versus Sussex at Brown's Ground in Brighton on 27, 28 & 29 August 1835. All the previous matches had involved Nottingham as a town rather than Nottinghamshire as a county. Nottinghamshire has been recognised as an important/first-class county team from 1835. The club grew in strength during the first thirty years of the 19th century and, by the time the county club was founded in 1841, Nottinghamshire was one of the "great counties" in cricket. In either March or April 1841, the formal creation of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club was enacted. The exact date has been lost. However, as noted above, an informal county club may have been active in 1835.
There is still a Nottingham Cricket Club, known as Nottinghamians and part of the rugby union club of that name. A significant source for the original club is William North's 1832 book of Nottingham Old Club Match Scores.
Important matches played by Nottingham Cricket Club
There are surviving references to fourteen matches involving Nottingham in the 18th century, between 1771 and 1800. After that, the next match in the records is dated 1813. Nine of the fourteen matches to 1800 must be considered important as they were eleven-a-side against MCC or one of the early Sheffield or Leicester teams. There are two matches against a team from Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, about whom little is known, and these have doubtful status. The other three matches were "odds" games in which either Nottingham or their opponents fielded 22 players against eleven. In the 19th century, many more Nottingham matches are known to have been played. Again, some were "odds" matches and others are deemed to lack importance because of the quality of the opposition.
Although it is an important match, the 1771 game against Sheffield is the earliest surviving reference to cricket in the county of Nottinghamshire. It is believed that the origin of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club lies in this same Nottingham town club that apparently came into existence by 1770. In 1835, its team was first styled as Nottinghamshire county, rather than Nottingham town, when it played against a county team. County matches to 1840 are included in the table because the Nottinghamshire teams were organised by the Nottingham club. The present Nottinghamshire county club was formally established in 1841.
Other matches
Records, or at least mentions, of several other matches played by the Nottingham club are in existence. These are not classed as important. Some were against minor club opponents and others were "odds" matches in which one team had more than eleven players. These matches are listed by Cricket Archive: