page_title: Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
section_title: Club history
hierarchical_section_title: Gloucestershire County Cricket Club / Club history
caption_attribution_description: English: Gloucestershire County Cricket Club team in 1880, including the Grace brothers and Billy Midwinter.
context_page_description: Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Gloucestershire. Founded in 1870, Gloucestershire have always been first-class and have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England. The club played its first senior match in 1870 and W. G. Grace was their captain. The club plays home games at the Bristol County Ground in the Bishopston area of north Bristol. A number of games are also played at the Cheltenham Cricket Festival at the College Ground, Cheltenham and matches have also been played at the Gloucester cricket festival at The King's School, Gloucester.
  Gloucestershire's most famous players have been W. G. Grace, whose father founded the club, and Wally Hammond, who scored 113 centuries for them. The club has had two notable periods of success: in the 1870s when it was unofficially acclaimed as the Champion County on at least three occasions, and from 1999 to 2006 when it won seven limited overs trophies, notably a ‘double double’ in 1999 and 2000, and the Sunday League in 2000.
context_section_description: The early history of Gloucestershire is dominated by the Grace family, most notably W G Grace, who was the club's original captain and held that post until his departure for London in 1899.  His brother E M Grace, although still an active player, was the original club secretary.  With the Grace brothers and Billy Midwinter in their team, Gloucestershire won three Champion County titles in the 1870s.
  Since then Gloucestershire's fortunes have been mixed and they have never won the official County Championship. They struggled in the pre-war years of the County Championship because their best batsmen, apart from Gilbert Jessop and briefly Charlie Townsend, were very rarely available. The bowling, except when Townsend did sensational things on sticky wickets in late 1895 and late 1898, was very weak until George Dennett emerged – then it had the fault of depending far too much on him. Wally Hammond, who still holds many of the county's batting records formed part of an occasionally strong inter-war team, although the highest championship finish during this period was second in 1930 and 1931, when Charlie Parker and Tom Goddard formed a devastating spin attack.
  Outstanding players since the war include Tom Graveney, "Jack" Russell and overseas players Mike Procter, Zaheer Abbas and Courtney Walsh.
caption: Gloucestershire CCC in 1880.
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