Cricket Grounds of Northamptonshire

Martin Chandler | 8:44am BST 30 July 2023

Published: 2023
Pages: 92
Author: Radd, Andrew
Publisher: ACS
Rating: 3.5 stars

Published simultaneously with that on Sussex this new booklet from the ACS finally completes their  series covering all of the venues at which county cricket has been played.

The basic format of this one is, naturally, the same as the Sussex booklet but the characters of the two counties, and their grounds, are very different. Northamptonshire is not steeped in cricketing history in the same way that Sussex is, and the venues and their stories are rather more prosaic as a result.

The first obvious difference is that prior to 1905 only two First Class matches were played in Northamptonshire, each between the United South of England XI and the United North of England XI in the 1870s. One was played at Northampton and the other in Wellingborough, and neither of the venues ever hosted a First Class match again. Both however get a lengthy write up, and Andrew Radd’s introduction is a detailed one as well.

1905 was the year that Northamptonshire joined the county championship, and the third ever First Class match in the county took place at the County Ground in Northampton. As at the end of 2022 only two grounds had hosted more First Class fixtures than the 1,078  that the County Ground has, and unsurprisingly against that background around 20% of the book is concerned with the venue.

In fact after the County Ground only another nine grounds have hosted Northamptonshire in First Class cricket, and another seven in List A fixtures. Six of those venues are not, strictly, in Northamptonshire and indeed if second eleven fixtures are included another eight join that list, located in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. In terms of how frequently the other grounds have been used even the second is not within a thousand fixtures of Northampton, Kettering having been the scene of 65 games, the last of them more than half a century ago.

The fact that none of the grounds featured in Cricket Grounds of Northamptonshire have been the subject of books before in many ways makes this booklet all the more interesting. It helps greatly that it has been so thoroughly researched by a man who is steeped in the county’s history and that makes the book eminently readable, and no one should fall into the trap of thinking that this is a statistical work. There are plenty of stats in it, but the narrative is the real strength.