League Minor Counties Cricket Championship | ||
Staffordshire 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 Staffordshire.
Contents
The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Championship Eastern Division and plays in the MCCA Knockout Trophy. Staffordshire played List A matches occasionally from 1971 until 2005 but is not classified as a List A team per se.
The club is based at Brewood near Wolverhampton and plays matches around the county at Lichfield Road in Stone, Walsall, Knypersley Victoria Sports Club, Longton Cricket Club, Audley, Hem Heath Cricket Club and Leek.
Honours
Earliest cricket
The Warwickshire & Staffordshire Journal in 1738 carried a report of a London v Mitcham game at the Artillery Ground on 11 August (London won by 1 wicket).
The earliest known reference to cricket being played in Staffordshire is as late as 1817.
Origin of club
The present Staffordshire CCC was founded on 24 November 1871 and took part in the first Minor Counties Championship in 1895. It then lapsed for four years as it could not arrange sufficient fixtures, but has been a member continuously since 1900.
Club history
Staffordshire has won the Minor Counties Championship 11 times, more than any other county. It won the title outright in 1906, 1908, 1911, 1920, 1921, 1927, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1998 and 2014. The 1914 title was disputed as the war prevented several matches from being played, and is regarded by the MCCA as void. Staffordshire's years of great success before and after the First World War were in part due to the great bowler, Sydney Barnes, who played for the county from 1904 to 1934 (when he was 61), and took 1,441 wickets at an average of 8.15 runs each. Barnes did not play, though, between 1920 and 1924, a period when Staffordshire won the Championship twice when the leading player was Aaron Lockett.
Staffordshire has won the MCCA Knockout Trophy twice since its inception in 1983. It won in 1991 and 1993.
Famous players
The following Staffordshire cricketers also made an impact on the first-class game: