Champion County Totally Explained

Everything about The Champion County totally explained

The Champion County in English cricket is a team that was proclaimed as the unofficial county championship winner in any season before 1890, the official County Championship having been constituted in December 1889. The strict use of the term "Champion County" in this sense contrasts with County Champions, which refers to a team that won the official title since 1890. The Champion County wasn't proclaimed in every season up to 1889 because in many cases there were not enough matches or there was simply no clear candidate. The concept has been utilised ad hoc and has relied on sufficient interest being shown.

Origin

It is difficult to know when the concept originated. Rowland Bowen states in his history that earliest usage of the term "County Championship" occurred in 1837 re a match between Kent and Nottinghamshire . That may be so re the actual terminology but closer examination of the sources does indicate a much earlier expression of the idea . The source says that the game could be called Kent v Sussex as the players were reported as 11 of each county. Sir William Gage was a Sussex landowner and Mr Stead was a resident of Maidstone in Kent. Evidently Mr Stead's Kent team also won two games earlier that season against the Duke of Richmond's XI (also representative of Sussex). The source states that (Stead's victory over Sir William Gage's XI) was the third time this summer that the Kent men have been too expert for those of Sussex .
In 1729, Sir William Gage’s Sussex team defeated Kent on 5 September and Waghorn has recorded: The latter got (within three) in one hand, as the former did in two hands, so the Kentish men threw it up. This may have been the earliest known innings victory. The report goes on to say that Thomas Waymark turned the scale of victory, which for some years past has been generally on the Kentish side . Bowen has recorded that Sussex was publicly acknowledged as the "best county" in the 1827 season when they played against All-England in the roundarm trial matches, although their involvement in these matches had more to do with the fact that Sussex was the prime mover in the roundarm revolution .
An important year was 1873, when player qualification rules came into force, requiring players to choose at the start of each season whether they'd play for the county of their birth or their county of residence. Before this, it was quite common for a player to play for both counties during the course of a single season. Three meetings were held, and at the last of these - held at The Oval on 9 June, 1873 - the following rules were decided on:

That no cricketer, whether amateur or professional, shall play for more than one county during the same season.
Every cricketer born in one county and residing in another shall be free to choose at the commencement of each season for which of those counties he'll play, and shall, during that season, play for the one county only.
A cricketer shall be qualified to play for the county in which he's residing and has resided for the previous two years: or a cricketer may elect to play for the county in which his family home is, so long as it remains open to him as an occasional residence.
That should any question arise as to the residential qualification, the same shall be left to the decision of the Marylebone Cricket Club .

Unofficial county champions

All "titles" before 1890 are strictly unofficial and are based on (a) contemporary claims made by or on behalf of a particular team and recorded at the time; (b) "reverse analysis" performed by a historian who was trying to establish the best team in a given season by reference to the known fixtures and results . Middlesex

1867 Yorkshire

1868 Yorkshire (Nottinghamshire also supported)

1869 Nottinghamshire (Yorkshire also supported)

1870 Yorkshire

1871 Nottinghamshire

1872 Surrey (Nottinghamshire also supported)

1873 Gloucestershire/Nottinghamshire (shared)

1874 Gloucestershire (Derbyshire also supported)

1875 Nottinghamshire

1876 Gloucestershire

1877 Gloucestershire

1878 Nottinghamshire

1879 Lancashire/Nottinghamshire (shared)

1880 Nottinghamshire

1881 Lancashire

1882 Lancashire/Nottinghamshire (shared)

1883 Yorkshire (Nottinghamshire also supported)

1884 Nottinghamshire

1885 Nottinghamshire

1886 Nottinghamshire

1887 Surrey

1888 Surrey

1889 Lancashire/Nottinghamshire/Surrey (shared)

Further Information

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