Club - Origins

And in the beginning there was...

Cricket was mentioned in Birmingham in the mid-18th century when the landlord of the Bell Inn, adjacent to the present day Smallbrook Queensway, advertised for matches for his team. Other sides played around the then villages of Washwood Heath and Erdington, but it is to the rural part of the county that we must look for the first, so-called Warwickshire Cricket Club.

In 1826 the Wellbourne (now Wellesbourne) club decided to award itself this more resounding title and a ground was established on land owned by the Earl of Warwick near Warwick Racecourse. Most of the facts about this first 'Warwickshire Cricket Club' have been obscured by the mists of time. No details of matches played by the club have been traced and they soon vacated the Warwick ground and returned to Wellesbourne.

The first match known to have been contested by a team styled 'Warwickshire' took place in August 1843. Leicestershire were beaten by 8 wickets at a ground called Gosford Green, where Coventry City now play football. The home team was chosen exclusively from players based in Coventry, Nuneaton and Warwick but the absence of an official county club gave the organisers every right to style their team 'Warwickshire'.

It was 1864 when a group of aristocrats and gentlemen, from the rural parts of the county, formed what was then "Warwickshire County Cricket Club". They played several matches a year but, with vast tracts of the country ignored, the club was totally unrepresentative of the county as a whole.

Meanwhile, in Birmingham cricket was growing apace. A Birmingham Association of Cricket Clubs was formed by a local schoolmaster, William Ansell, and in 1882 Ansell helped organise a meeting in Coventry to discuss the formation of a fully representative county club. In attendance were representatives of the Warwickshire Gentlemen's Club and people from Coventry and Leamington, as well as Birmingham. At the meeting a broad agreement was reached and, when they met again at the Regent Hotel, Leamington on 8th April 1882, the present Warwickshire County Cricket Club was formally established.

William Ansell and his group were strongly in favour of permanent headquarters and ground in Birmingham but there was strong support for Leamington as the base, while others felt a central ground was unnecessary therefore favouring a 'wandering' club.

The new county club's difficulties were compounded when the old Gentlemen's Club continued playing games under the name of 'Warwickshire'. Some of their sides were so weak that they have recorded defeats against school teams. This ludicrous situation could not carry on, but in 1883 fate took a hand when the Old Club folded, leaving the way for the Warwickshire Club proper to become soundly and, equally important, accepted nationally.

With regard to the ground, Birmingham was the chosen location and it was decided that 12 acres of meadowland by the banks of the Rea, on the Calthorpe Estate, should be acquired. By June 1886 sufficient improvements had been effected for Warwickshire to open the new ground with a fixture against an MCC team. The conditions still left much to be desired but at least Warwickshire was finally playing on its own ground. Incidentally, the game petered out into a draw, the visitors showing more interest in an early train back to London than providing a good game.

So, Warwickshire was now on the cricketing map, albeit in a modest way.