List of Essex County Cricket Club grounds

The County Ground in Leyton (left) was Essex's original first-class venue, but it has not been used since 1977, and all matches are now held at the similarly-named County Ground in Chelmsford (right).

Essex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 member clubs of the English County Championship, representing the historic county of Essex. The club was established on 14 January 1876 and has played first-class cricket since 1894,[1] List A cricket since 1963[2] and Twenty20 cricket since 2003.[3][A] Unlike most professional sports, in which a team usually has a single fixed home ground, county cricket clubs have traditionally used different grounds in various towns and cities within the county for home matches, although the use of minor "out grounds" has diminished since the 1980s.[4][5] Essex have played first class, List A, or Twenty20 matches at 14 different grounds.

The club's debut home fixture in first-class cricket was played at the County Ground in Leyton against Leicestershire in 1894. This ground remained the county's headquarters and principal match venue until the end of the 1933 season and was used regularly for over 80 years.[6] Until April 2024 it had still hosted more of the county's first-class matches than any other ground. Essex played their final match at the venue in 1977, however, since when the similarly-named County Ground in Chelmsford has hosted the majority of first-class games. The ground in Leyton has continued to be used for matches in local competitions.[7]

The club's first home List A fixture took place in 1965 against Derbyshire at the Old County Ground in Brentwood. This venue had been used since the 1920s for first-class matches, but only staged two List A matches, and its use was discontinued altogether in 1969. The County Ground in Chelmsford played host to the club's first home Twenty20 fixture in 2003, against Kent, and has since hosted every one of the county's home Twenty20 matches with the exception of a single game in 2014 which was played at Castle Park in Colchester.

Essex traditionally staged annual "cricket festivals" in the towns of Colchester, Ilford and Southend-on-Sea, which usually consisted of two first-class matches over the course of a week, and later incorporated one List A match following the introduction of that format. The Ilford event was abandoned following the 2002 season.[8] The Southend festival moved from its traditional home at Southchurch Park to Garon Park in 2005,[9] making the latter venue the county's only new home ground of the 21st century. Following the 2011 season, however, Essex discontinued the Southend festival altogether,[10] leaving Castle Park in Colchester as the only venue regularly used by the county other than its main base in Chelmsford. The Colchester festival was not held in 2017, and all the county's home games were played at Chelmsford;[11] the Colchester festival has remained suspended.[12]

  1. ^ Marshall, Ian (2015). Playfair Cricket Annual 2015. Hachette UK. p. 1876. ISBN 978-1472212184.
  2. ^ "List A Matches played by Essex". CricketArchive. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  3. ^ "Twenty20 Matches played by Essex". CricketArchive. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  4. ^ Glover, Andrew (10 April 2013). "Remembering Yorkshire County Cricket Club's out grounds". BBC News. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  5. ^ Stockton, Edward (13 June 2006). "Out of town but not out of favour". ESPNcricinfo. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  6. ^ David Lemmon; Mike Marshall (1987). Essex County Cricket Club The Official History. London: Kingswood Press. pp. 184–186.
  7. ^ "Other Matches played on County Ground, Leyton (164)". CricketArchive. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  8. ^ "Southend Cricket Festival is axed by Essex". The Echo. 28 September 2011. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  9. ^ "Essex switch Festival venue". BBC Sport. 30 September 2004. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  10. ^ "Essex decide to scrap 2012 Southend Cricket Festival". BBC Sport. 28 September 2011. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  11. ^ "Essex drop Colchester Festival for 2017". ESPN Cricinfo. 26 November 2016. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
  12. ^ Jennings, Ryan (29 November 2018). "Colchester Cricket Festival suspended again next season". www.gazette-news.co.uk. Archived from the original on 8 February 2018. Retrieved 7 February 2018.