Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1887
Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1887 was the cricket season when the English club Derbyshire had been playing for sixteen years and was the last season before they lost first class status for seven years. Derbyshire played two county matches each against Lancashire and Surrey, one against MCC, they lost all these matches and as a result Wisden decided not to accord them first class status in the following year. However they played three non first class matches against Essex and Leicestershire and won all three; the captain for the year was William Chatterton who played for MCC during the season. The top scorer was George Davidson who took most wickets. During the season Derbyshire played their first home fixture away from the County Ground, when they played Lancashire at the Recreation Ground, Long Eaton; this was the only occasion. Two important players made their debut in the season whose performance came to the fore once Derbyshire regained first-class status, they were John Hulme who took over 550 wickets for Derbyshre and Bill Storer, one of the club's long-serving wicket-keepers.
Harry Bagshaw who made his debut gave the club many years service. Other players who made their debut were George Ratcliffe, Joseph Marshall, Henry Street and William Walton. None of these had the chance to play first class cricket for Derbyshire again although some appeared for the club in the intervening years. A number of players appeared for Derbyshire for the last time this season; these included Edmund Maynard a former captain and George Barrington who had both joined in 1880. Departing were Henry Slater, a member of the side since 1882 and Edwin Coup who had joined the club in 1885. In addition Thomas Mycroft a stand-in wicket-keeper who had made occasional appearances since 1877 played his last game. Several cricketers continued playing for Derbyshire but had stopped playing by the time the club reached first class status again in 1894; these were James Disney wicket-keeper since 1881, George Ratcliffe, Joseph Marshall, William Walton, three of the players who made their debut in 1887 and William Cropper who died in 1889 as a result of an unfortunate football accident.
Chatterton played five matches for MCC during the season. Figures recalculated to exclude non Derbyshire matches Figures recalculated to exclude non Derbyshire matches James Disney Catches 12 Stumping 1 Derbyshire County Cricket Club seasons 1887 English cricket season
Derby County F.C.
Derby County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Derby, England. The club competes in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football, has played its home matches at Pride Park Stadium since 1997. Notable for being one of the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888, Derby County is one of only 10 clubs to have competed in every season of the English football league system and, in 2009, was ranked 137th in the top 200 European football teams of the 20th century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics; the club was founded in 1884 as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club. Its competitive peak came in the 1970s when it twice won the First Division and competed in major European competitions on four separate occasions, reaching the European Cup semi-finals as well as winning several minor trophies. Additionally, the club was a strong force in the interwar years, winning the 1945–46 FA Cup; the club's home colours have been white since the 1890s.
The team gets its nickname, The Rams, to show tribute to its links with the First Regiment of Derby Militia, which took a ram as its mascot. Additionally adopting the song "The Derby Ram" as its regimental song. Derby County F. C. was formed in 1884 as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club in an attempt to give players and supporters a winter interest as well as secure the cricket club extra revenue. The original intention was to name the club "Derbyshire County F. C." to highlight the link, though the Derbyshire FA, formed in 1883, objected on the grounds it was too long and therefore would not have been understood by the fans who may mistake it for a Derbyshire FA team. Playing their home matches at the cricket club's Racecourse Ground, 1884–85 saw the club undertake an extensive programme of friendly matches, the first of, a 6–0 defeat to Great Lever on 13 September 1884; the club’s first competitive match came in the 1885 FA Cup, where they lost 7–0 at home to Walsall Town. Arguably the most important match in the club's history came in the following season's FA Cup, when a 2–0 victory over Aston Villa an emerging force in English football, helped establish Derby County on the English football map, helping the club to attract better opposition for friendlies and, in 1888, an invitation into the inaugural Football League.
The opening day of the first league season was 8 September 1888, when Derby came from 3–0 down away to Bolton Wanderers to win 6–3, though the club finished 10th out of 12 teams. In 1891, they absorbed another Derby club, Derby Midland, a member of the Midland League, leaving them as Derby's sole professional football club. Steve Bloomer considered to be Derby County's best-ever player, joined the club in 1892. In 1895, the club moved to a new stadium, the Baseball Ground, which became their home for the next 102 years, it was that the club adopted their now traditional home colours of black and white. Although Derby were inconsistent in the league, they finished as runners-up to Aston Villa in 1896, as well as achieved a number of third-place finishes, they were a strong force in the FA Cup, appearing in three finals in six years around the turn of the 20th century, though lost all three, in 1898, 1899 and 1903. In 1906, Steve Bloomer was sold to Middlesbrough due to financial constraints, Derby subsequently suffered its first relegation the following season, but under Jimmy Methven's management, they re-signed Bloomer and regained their First Division place in 1911.
In 1914, they were again relegated, but won the Second Division to earn promotion, though World War I meant they had to wait until 1919 to play First Division football again. After two seasons, they were relegated yet again in 1921. However, the appointment of George Jobey in 1925 kick-started a successful period for the Rams and, after promotion in 1926, the club became a formidable force, with high finishes from the late 1920s and all through the 1930s, including finishing as runners-up twice. Derby were one of several clubs to close down after the outbreak of World War II but restarted in the early 1940s, in part due to the persistence of Jack Nicholas and Jack Webb. Aided by the recruitment of Raich Carter and Peter Doherty, who had both been stationed in Loughborough during the war, Derby were one step ahead of the opposition when competitive football resumed with the 1946 FA Cup and won their first major trophy with a 4–1 victory over Charlton Athletic; the league restarted the following season after a break due to World War II and, under the management of Stuart McMillan, as well as twice breaking the British transfer record to sign Billy Steel and Johnny Morris to replace Carter and Doherty, finished fourth and third in the 1948 and 1949 seasons before a steady decline set in and the club was relegated in 1953, after nearly 30 years in the top flight, again in 1955 to drop to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history.
Harry Storer led Derby back into the second tier at the second attempt in 1957, though the club progressed no further over the next decade under either Storer or his successor, former Derby player Tim Ward. In 1967, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor led them to their greatest glory. Having clinched the influential signing of Dave Mackay, Derby were promoted to the First Division in 1969, finished fourth in 1970, were banned from competing in Europe due to financial irregularities in 1971 and won their first Football League Championship in 1972. Though Derby
Fred Spofforth
Frederick Robert "Fred" Spofforth known as "The Demon Bowler", was arguably the Australian cricket team's finest pace bowler of the nineteenth century and was the first bowler to take 50 Test wickets, the first to take a Test hat-trick in 1879. He played in Test matches for Australia between 1877 and 1887, settled in England where he played for Derbyshire. In 2011, he was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame. Spofforth was born in the Sydney suburb of Balmain, the son of Yorkshire-born Edward Spofforth, a bank clerk, his wife Anna, née McDonnell. Spofforth spent his early childhood in Hokianga, New Zealand and was educated at the Reverend John Pendrill's Eglinton House on Glebe Road and, for a short time, at Sydney Grammar School. Spofforth was thereafter employed by the Bank of New South Wales as a clerk, he began his life as a bowler with underarm "lobs" but changed his style when he saw the great England quick bowlers on their tour of the colonies in 1863/64. He spent many years mastering it.
Spofforth came to notice as a member of the New South Wales eighteen in January 1874 when he took two wickets for sixteen in a match against W. G. Grace's English eleven, he was a regular representative of the New South Wales team in intercolonial fixtures and, in the December 1877 game, went in second wicket down to make 25, the highest score in either innings in a low-scoring match. Although he batted reasonably well during the 1878 and 1880 Australian tours in England, from he concentrated solely on his bowling and established a tremendous reputation. Spofforth played his first Test match in 1877 in Melbourne, it was the second match of the first-ever Test series, against an English team led by James Lillywhite, Jr. Spofforth took three wickets in the first innings and another in the second, but England went on to win the match by four wickets, he had boycotted the First Test because of Jack Blackham's selection as wicket-keeper ahead of Spofforth's close friend and fellow New South Welshman Billy Murdoch.
Spofforth announced himself to the cricketing world on 27 May 1878, when the touring Australians met the MCC at Lord's. In this, the second match of the tour, the might of the MCC was dismissed twice in one day at the fortress of English cricket for paltry scores of just 33 and nineteen; the colonists won by nine wickets, with Spofforth picking up ten for twenty after first clean-bowling Grace for a duck. Tom "Felix" Horan records that, when he did so, "he jumped about two feet in the air, sang out:'Bowled! Bowled! Bowled!' And at the finish in the dressing-room, he said:'Ain't I a demon? Ain't I a demon?' gesticulating the while in his well-known demonaic style. Whether or not he christened himself the demon, he was a demon bowler." Spofforth confirms this: "To myself, it will always be a noteworthy occasion, since it was that I first earned my popular sobriquet –'the Demon'."As a consequence of this victory, writes Plum Warner, the "fame of Australian cricket was established for all time." Spofforth became known forever as "The Demon Bowler".
He was the bowler whom English batsmen most feared and is regarded as the one who first brought into the game, as a scaring technique, eye-to-eye contact with the batsman. Spofforth would stare straight into the batsman's eyes to scare and shake him. During the 1878 tour Spofforth was credited with as many as 110 wickets at an average of under 10½ runs, besides having the respectable batting average of 13 for 28 innings; this worked to devastating effect in the match that gave birth to the legendary Ashes series, at The Oval on 29 August 1882. In their second innings, England required a mere 85 runs to clinch the match, but Spofforth refused to give up – "Boys," he said famously, "this thing can be done"—and led his team to a remarkable victory, one of the closest in the history of Test cricket; the Australians won by Spofforth taking match figures of fourteen for ninety. During the January Test match of the 1879 Lord Harris' England tour of Australia, played on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Spofforth became the first man to get a hat-trick in Test cricket, dismissing Vernon Royle, Francis MacKinnon and Tom Emmett in three successive deliveries.
This was the highlight of a brilliant bowling performance. In February, Spofforth played for New South Wales against Lord Harris' tourists in a game that, on the Saturday, descended into the Sydney riot of 1879. Although not noted as a batsman, he once top-scored in a Test from the unlikely starting position of number eleven, he hit 50 against England at Melbourne in 1884–85. Fred Spofforth played his last Test match in Sydney in January 1887 in which he bowled twelve overs, conceded seventeen runs and took one wicket. England won the match by 13 runs, he represented New South Wales from 1874 to 1885 and Victoria from 1885 to 1887. In 1888 Spofforth got married, choosing to live in Derbyshire; the Derbyshire County Cricket Club tried unsuccessfully to persuade the County Cricket Council to allow him to play for Derbyshire without waiting for the usual two years' residential qualification. However, Yorkshire were willing to waive the point so that Spofforth could play against them in two matches in the 1889 season.
In one of these games he took fifteen Yorkshire wickets for 81 runs. With the residential qualification met in the following year, Spofforth was able not only to play for Derbyshire but to captain the side in the 1890 season. In 1890 Derbyshire was found to be in deep financial crisis and Spofforth played a key
Hyde, Greater Manchester
Hyde is a town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, which in 2011 had a population of 34,003. In Cheshire, it is 5 miles northeast of Stockport, 6 miles west of Glossop and 7 miles east of Manchester. Newton Hall was present in the 13th century; the area formed a township of the parish of Stockport. Its name is derived from the Hide, a measure of land for taxation purposes, taken to be that area of land necessary to support a peasant family. In times it was taken to be equivalent to 120 acres. In the late 18th century the area, to become the town centre was no more than a cluster houses known as Red Pump Street. Gee Cross was much larger and'Hyde' was still only used to refer to the estates of Hyde Hall on the banks of the River Tame. Altogether there were only 3,500 inhabitants in the district in 1801; the town is a creation of the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution. The population of Hyde increased due to the success of the cotton mills during the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, at one stage there were 40 working mills.
By 1872 only 27 remained, half of the remaining mills closed between 1921 and 1939 and there is only one working mill in the town today. There were many mill owning families, including the Sidebotham and Horsfield families; the main employers in the mills were the Ashton family who ran a combined spinning and weaving company. Most mills concentrated on one process only; the Ashton family built Hyde Chapel on Gee Cross. The Ashton Brothers' Mill has been demolished to make way for a housing estate. St George's Church was built in 1832 as a chapel of ease to Stockport, it was built at the instigation of John Hyde Clarke of Hyde Hall and was the first Church of England place of worship in the town. St George's became the parish church of part of Hyde township in 1842. Additions include the lychgate, boathouse by the canal, hearse house, parish rooms and numerous vicarages; the church has a clock. The Peak Forest Canal was constructed through Hyde from Ashton-under-Lyne to Woodley and Marple. Captain Clarke's Bridge named Wood End Canal Bridge is situated at the end of Woodend Lane.
The bridge was erected before Captain Clarke rose to prominence and therefore became known as Captain Clarke's Bridge after he retired and resided there. There was a coal mine, known as Hyde Colliery, in the town and in January 1889 an explosion there killed 23 miners. There was an enquiry held the following month at the town hall. See http://www.cotswan.com/edward_jackson.htm for an account of part of the enquiry. The following month Ardwick AFC, modern day Manchester City, played Newton Heath, modern day Manchester United, under floodlights at Belle Vue to raise money for the victims' families; the game was watched by 10,000 people and this was the first floodlit match played by either side. During the 1960s, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were arrested in their home on the Hattersley estate in Hyde after police found the body of 17-year-old Edward Evans in the house. At their trial they were found guilty of murdering Evans as well as two other children whose bodies were found buried on Saddleworth Moor several miles away.
Britain's most prolific serial killer, Dr Harold Shipman, had his doctor's surgery in the town where he murdered most of his several hundred victims. The first known victim was 86-year-old Sarah Hannah Marsland of Ashton House in Victoria Street on 7 August 1978 and the last was Kathleen Grundy of Joel Lane on 24 June 1998. On 18 September 2012, drug dealer Dale Cregan made a hoax emergency call to the police from an address in Hattersley, luring Police Constables Nicola Hughes, 23, Fiona Bone, 32, of Greater Manchester Police there by claiming that there had been an incident of criminal damage; when they arrived, he murdered them. Hyde was incorporated as a municipal borough of Cheshire in 1881, which covered the parishes of Hyde and Newton, along with part of Compstall. In 1936 the borough was extended by the annexation of the civil parish of Hattersley and part of the civil parish of Matley from Tintwistle Rural District; the whole of the municipal borough became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972.
Hyde Town Hall dominates the market place area. The large bell in the clocktower is known as Owd Joss, named after Joshua Bradley, a former poor child worker in the mills; the clock chimes the Westminster Quarters. As a county palatine Cheshire was unrepresented in Parliament until the Chester and Cheshire Act 1542. From 1545 Cheshire was represented by two Knights of the Shire. On the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832, the area of Hyde was included in the North Cheshire constituency. Between the passing of the Second Reform Act of 1867 and the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, the town was part of the East Cheshire constituency. Between 1885 and 1918 the town was part of the Hyde county constituency. Since the 1918 general election, the town has been represented in Parliament by the member for the Stalybridge and Hyde county constituency; the current Member of Parliament is Jonathan Reynolds. Werneth Low Country Park is the location of the Hyde War Memorial; the memorial is owned by a trust which raised funds from Hyde residents after the Great War to create a permanent memorial to those Hyde residents who died in that conflict.
The memorial contains 710 names. Hyde is separated from Denton by a tributary of the River Mersey. There are several areas and suburbs in Hyde, these include, Gee Cross, Hattersley, Flowery Field, Mottram in Longdendale, Hollingworth a
Bowling average
In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing, it is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers used alongside the economy rate and the strike rate to judge the overall performance of a bowler. When a bowler has taken only a small number of wickets, their bowling average can be artificially high or low, unstable, with further wickets taken or runs conceded resulting in large changes to their bowling average. Due to this, qualification restrictions are applied when determining which players have the best bowling averages. After applying these criteria, George Lohmann holds the record for the lowest average in Test cricket, having claimed 112 wickets at an average of 10.75 runs per wicket. A cricketer's bowling average is calculated by dividing the numbers of runs they have conceded by the number of wickets they have taken; the number of runs conceded by a bowler is determined as the total number of runs that the opposing side have scored while the bowler was bowling, excluding any byes, leg byes, or penalty runs.
The bowler receives credit for any wickets taken during their bowling that are either bowled, hit wicket, leg before wicket or stumped. B o w l i n g a v e r a g e = R u n s c o n c e d e d W i c k e t s t a k e n A number of flaws have been identified for the statistic, most notable among these the fact that a bowler who has taken no wickets can not have a bowling average, as dividing by zero does not give a result; the effect of this is that the bowling average can not distinguish between a bowler who has taken no wickets and conceded one run, a bowler who has taken no wickets and conceded one hundred runs. The bowling average does not tend to give a true reflection of the bowler's ability when the number of wickets they have taken is small in comparison to the number of runs they have conceded. In his paper proposing an alternative method of judging batsmen and bowlers, Paul van Staden gives an example of this: Suppose a bowler has bowled a total of 80 balls, conceded 60 runs and has taken only 2 wickets so that..
30. If the bowler takes a wicket with the next ball bowled 20. Due to this, when establishing records for bowling averages, qualification criteria are set. For Test cricket, the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack sets this as 75 wickets, while ESPNcricinfo requires 2,000 deliveries. Similar restrictions are set for one-day cricket. A number of factors other than purely the ability level of the bowler have an effect on a player's bowling average. Most significant among these are the different eras; the bowling average tables in Test and first-class cricket are headed by players who competed in the nineteenth century, a period when pitches were uncovered and some were so badly looked after that they had rocks on them. The bowlers competing in the Howa Bowl, a competition played in South African during the apartheid-era, restricted to non-white players, during which time, according to Vincent Barnes: "Most of the wickets we played on were underprepared. For me, as a bowler, it was great." Other factors which provided an advantage to bowlers in that era was the lack of significant safety equipment.
Other variations are caused by frequent matches against stronger or weaker opposition, changes in the laws of cricket and the length of matches. Due to the varying qualifying restrictions placed on the records by different statisticians, the record for the lowest career bowling average can be different from publication to publication. In Test cricket, George Lohmann is listed as having the superior average by each of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, ESPNcricinfo and CricketArchive. Though all three use different restrictions, Lohmann's average of 10.75 is considered the best. If no qualification criteria were applied at all, three players—Wilf Barber, A. N. Hornby and Bruce Murray—would tie for the best average, all having claimed just one wicket in Test matches, without conceding any runs, thus averaging zero. ESPNcricinfo list Betty Wilson as having the best Women's Test cricket average with 11.80, while CricketArchive accept Mary Spear's average of 5.78. In One Day Internationals, the varying criteria set by ESPNcricinfo and CricketArchive result in different players being listed as holding the record.
ESPNcricinfo has the stricter restriction, requiring 1,000 deliveries: by this measure, Joel Garner is the record-holder, having claimed his wickets at an average of 18.84. By CricketArchive's more relaxed requirement of 400 deliveries, John Snow leads the way, with an average of 16.57. In women's One Day International cricket, Caroline Barrs tops the CricketArchive list with an average of 9.52, but by ESPNcricinfo's stricter guidelines, the record is instead held by Gill Smith's 12.53. The record is again split for the two websites for Twenty20 International cricket. George O'Brien's average of 8.20 holds the record using those criteri
Test cricket
Test cricket is the form of the sport of cricket with the longest duration, is considered the game's highest standard. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined and conferred by the International Cricket Council; the term Test stems from the fact of the form's long, gruelling matches being both mentally and physically testing. Two teams of 11 players each play a four-innings match, it is considered the most complete examination of a team's endurance and ability. The first recognised Test match took place between 15 and 19 March 1877 and was played between England and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where Australia won by 45 runs. A Test match to celebrate 100 years of Test cricket was held in Melbourne between 12 and 17 March 1977, in which Australia beat England by 45 runs—the same margin as that first Test. In October 2012, the ICC recast the playing conditions for Test matches, permitting day/night Test matches; the first day/night game took place between Australia and New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, on 27 November – 1 December 2015.
Women's Test cricket is played over four days, with slight differences in format from men's Tests. Test matches are the highest level of cricket, statistically, their data form part of first-class cricket. Matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council; as of June 2017, twelve national teams have Test status, the most promoted being Afghanistan and Ireland on 22 June 2017. Zimbabwe's Test status was voluntarily suspended, because of poor performances between 2006 and 2011. In January 2014, during an ICC meeting in Dubai, the pathway for new potential Test nations was laid out with the winners of the next round of the ICC Intercontinental Cup playing a 5-day match against the bottom ranked Test nation. If the Associate team defeats the Test nation they could be added as the new Test country and granted full membership. A list of matches, defined as "Tests", was first drawn up by Australian Clarence Moody in the mid-1890s.
Representative matches played by simultaneous England touring sides of 1891–92 and 1929–30 are deemed to have "Test status". In 1970, a series of five "Test matches" was played in England between England and a Rest of the World XI; these matches scheduled between England and South Africa, were amended after South Africa was suspended from international cricket because of their government's policy of apartheid. Although given Test status, this was withdrawn and a principle was established that official Test matches can only be between nations. Despite this, in 2005, the ICC ruled that the six-day Super Series match that took place in October 2005, between Australia and a World XI, was an official Test match; some cricket writers and statisticians, including Bill Frindall, ignored the ICC's ruling and excluded the 2005 match from their records. The series of "Test matches" played in Australia between Australia and a World XI in 1971–72 do not have Test status; the commercial "Supertests" organised by Kerry Packer as part of his World Series Cricket enterprise and played between "WSC Australia", "WSC World XI" and "WSC West Indies" from 1977 to 1979 have never been regarded as official Test matches.
There are twelve Test-playing men's teams. The teams all represent individual, independent nations, except for England, the West Indies and Ireland. Test status is conferred upon a group of countries by the International Cricket Council. Teams that do not have Test status can play in the ICC Intercontinental Cup designed to allow non-Test teams to play under conditions similar to Tests; the teams are listed below with the date of each team's Test debut: England Australia South Africa West Indies New Zealand India Pakistan Sri Lanka Zimbabwe Bangladesh Ireland Afghanistan In the mid 2010s, the ICC evaluated proposals for dividing Test cricket into two tiers, with promotion and relegation between Tier-1 and Tier-2. These proposals were opposed by others; these proposals were not implemented. A standard day of Test cricket consists of three sessions of two hours each, the breaks between sessions being 40 minutes for lunch and 20 minutes for tea; however the times of sessions and intervals may be altered in certain circumstances: if bad weather or a change of innings occurs close to a scheduled break, the break may be taken immediately.
Today, Test matches are scheduled to be played across five consecutive days
Derbyshire County Cricket Club
Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Derbyshire, its limited overs team is called the Derbyshire Falcons in reference to the famous peregrine falcon which nests on the Derby Cathedral. Founded in 1870, the club held first-class status from its first match in 1871 until 1887; because of poor performances and lack of fixtures in some seasons, Derbyshire lost its status for seven seasons until it was invited into the County Championship in 1895. Derbyshire is classified as a List A team since the beginning of limited overs cricket in 1963. In recent years the club has enjoyed record attendances with over 24,000 people watching their home Twenty20 fixtures in 2017 – a record for a single campaign; the local derby versus Yorkshire at Chesterfield now sells out in advance. The club is based at the County Cricket Ground known as the Racecourse Ground, in the city of Derby.
In 2006, for the first time in eight years, county cricket returned to Queen's Park, Chesterfield with a County Championship game against Worcestershire and a one-day league game against Surrey. Other first-class cricket grounds used in the past have included Buxton, Saltergate in Chesterfield, Ilkeston, Abbeydale Park in Sheffield and Burton upon Trent, in Staffordshire. One-day contests have been played at Darley Dale, Repton School, Trent College, Leek and Knypersley. County Championship – 1936Division Two – 2012Sunday/Pro 40/National League – 1990 Gillette/NatWest/C&G/Friends Provident Trophy – 1981 Benson & Hedges Cup – 1993 Cricket may not have reached Derbyshire until the 18th century; the earliest reference to cricket in the county is a match in September 1757 between Wirksworth and Sheffield Cricket Club at Brampton Moor, near Chesterfield. The formation of Derbyshire County Cricket Club took place on 4 November 1870 at a meeting in the Guildhall, Derby; the Earl of Chesterfield, who had played for and against All-England, was the first President, G. H. Strutt was Vice-President and Walter Boden, who had campaigned for the club's foundation for three years, was secretary.
When Chesterfield died the following year, William Jervis became President. Derbyshire's opening season was 1871 when the club played its initial first-class match versus Lancashire at Old Trafford Cricket Ground on 26 and 27 May 1871 and joined the County Championship. Although the club had some good results in its early seasons, it struggled for the most part and before the 1888 season, following a run of disastrous results, Derbyshire was demoted from first-class status, based on the number of matches against other teams of similar standing. Derbyshire recovered first-class status in 1894 and rejoined the County Championship in 1895. Although the county had a quite strong team due to the bowling of George Davidson, Joseph Hulme and George Porter and the batting and wicket-keeping of William Storer, William Chatterton and Bagshaw, within three years they had hit rock-bottom, going through 1897 without a win due to their best bowlers losing their powers. From this point up to 1925, Derbyshire were perennially among the weakest counties, losing every single match in 1920 despite the efforts of Sam Cadman and Arthur Morton, persevering professionals.
From 1926, the nucleus of a good team emerged around some doughty batting from Denis Smith, Stan Worthington and George Pope. Pope's bowling and that of his brother Alf, leg spinner Tommy Mitchell and seam bowler Bill Copson took the team to their one and so far only Championship victory in 1936, they won. Worthington, Les Townsend and Alderman all passed 1,000 runs and Copson and Mitchell took over 100 wickets, with Alf Pope taking 94. Charlie Elliott, who became a Test umpire and selector, was another member of this team, captained by AW Richardson. There have been more downs than ups in post-war years. Though runs came from Arnold Hamer and less from the West Indian Laurie Johnson and captain Donald Carr, the batting remained the weak point right up to the beginning of covered pitches in the 1980s. However, a series of seam bowlers served England as well as Derbyshire; the list began with Copson and continued with Cliff Gladwin, Les Jackson, Harold Rhodes, Alan Ward, Mike Hendrick and, most Devon Malcolm and Dominic Cork.
Spin was in short supply apart from the steady work of Edwin Smith and the under-rated all-rounder Geoff Miller, the current national selector of the England team and noted after-dinner speaker. The signing of Eddie Barlow, the famous South African, in 1976 and the lengthy period under the captaincy of Kim Barnett, starting in 1983, meant the side were uncompetitive. Derbyshire were crowned County Championship Division Two champions in 2012 after securing a 6-wicket victory over Hampshire on the final day of the season at the County Ground, as Karl Krikken's side won promotion after securing more wins over the course of the season than Yorkshire who finished the campaign on 194 points. After the conclusion of the 2013 season, Derbyshire announced a new Elite Cricket Performance model in the next phase of the Club’s quest for sustainable on-field success across all three domestic competitions, combined with the desire to produce England cricketers. Former Derbyshire bowler Graeme Welch was appointed the new Elite Cricket Performance Director in January 2014.
This following table gives details of every
