Staffordshire County Cricket Club


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. 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.

History

The earliest known reference to cricket being played in Staffordshire is as late as 1817. The present Staffordshire county club 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.
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 1914 and from 1924 to 1934. He took 1,441 wickets at an average of 8.15 runs each. Barnes was not playing for the county in 1920 or 1921, two of Staffordshire's title-winning seasons. The leading player then was Aaron Lockett. The most recent title in 2014 was won after a play-off final against the Western Division league leaders, Wiltshire, at the South Wilts Sports Club ground in Salisbury. Staffordshire has won the MCCA Knockout Trophy twice since its inception in 1983.

Honours

The club has always played its matches at club grounds around the county. It began playing at the old County Ground on Victoria Road in Stoke-on-Trent. That closed before the Second World War. In recent years, some of the grounds have been:
The following cricketers with Staffordshire associations made an impact on the first-class game: