Cambridge Town Club

Cambridge Town Club (CTC) was an English cricket club established in Cambridge before 1817. Among notable players who represented CTC were Tom Hayward Sr, Robert Carpenter, Alfred Diver, and George Tarrant. It co-existed with Cambridge University Cricket Club, an entirely separate entity, and the two teams played each other on numerous occasions. ^[1]

Nomenclature

As with similar leading town clubs, the CTC team was representative of the county of Cambridgeshire as a whole, and it ultimately evolved into the original Cambridgeshire County Cricket Club, but various team names were in use, and the town and county clubs were effectively the same thing, both of them folding by the end of the 1870s. ^[2] The names used for matches were Cambridge Town Club (1817–1861), Cambridgeshire (1844–1871), Cambridge Union Club (1826–1833), Cambridge Townsmen (one match only in 1848), and the Cambridge Town and County Club (1844–1856). According to the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS), this nomenclature has created a scenario whereby "it is impossible to separate the Town Club from that of the County in major matches". ^{[3] [note 1]}

The modern Cambridgeshire county club, which plays in the Minor Counties Championship, was founded in 1891, and has no connection with the CTC. ^[8]

Notes

1. Some eleven-a-side matches played from 1772 to 1863 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources. ^[4] However, the term only came into common use around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised. It was formally defined as a standard by a meeting at Lord's, in May 1894, of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the county clubs which were then competing in the County Championship. The ruling was effective from the beginning of the 1895 season, but pre-1895 matches of the same standard have no official definition of status because the ruling is not retrospective. ^[5] Matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status. ^[6] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as important or, at least, historically significant. ^[7] For further information, see First-class cricket.

References

1. ACS 1981, pp. 32–39.
2. Birley 1999, p. 83.
3. ACS 1981, pp. 6–7.
4. "First-Class Matches in England in 1772" . CricketArchive. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
5. Wisden (1948). Preston, Hubert (ed.). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (85th ed.). London: Sporting Handbooks Ltd. p. 813. OCLC   851705816.
6. ACS 1982, pp. 4–5.
7. ACS 1981, pp. 1–40.
8. Wisden 1983, p. 278.

Bibliography

• ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC   85045528.
• ACS (1982). A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC   10586869.
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. London: Aurum Press. ISBN   978-18-54107-10-7 – via Internet Archive.
• Wisden (1983). Woodcock, John (ed.). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (120th ed.). London: Queen Anne Press. ISBN   978-0-3560-9381-9.

Further reading

• Haygarth, Arthur (1996) [1862]. Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744–1826). Kennington: Frederick Lillywhite. ISBN   978-19-00592-23-9.
• Haygarth, Arthur (1997) [1862]. Scores & Biographies, Volume 2 (1827–1840). Kennington: Frederick Lillywhite. ISBN   978-19-00592-23-9.