page_title: Surrey County Cricket Club
section_title: 1900–1939
hierarchical_section_title: Surrey County Cricket Club / History / 1900–1939
caption_attribution_description: English: Jack Hobbs c.1925.
context_page_description: Surrey County Cricket Club is a first-class club in county cricket, one of eighteen in the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Surrey, including areas that now form South London. Teams representing the county are recorded from 1709 onwards; the current club was founded in 1845 and has held first-class status continuously since then. Surrey have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England, including every edition of the County Championship.
  The club's home ground is The Oval, in the Kennington area of Lambeth in South London. They have been based there continuously since 1845. The club also has an 'out ground' at Woodbridge Road, Guildford, where some home games are played each season.
  Surrey's long history includes three major periods of great success. The club was unofficially proclaimed as "Champion County" seven times during the 1850s; it won the title eight times in nine years from 1887 to 1895; and won seven consecutive titles from 1952 to 1958. Surrey won 23 of its 28 county matches in 1955, the most wins by any team in the County Championship and a record which can no longer be beaten.
context_section_description: The start of the 20th century brought a decline in Surrey's fortunes, and they won the title only once during the next fifty years, in 1914. At the request of Surrey's captain Lord Dalmeny, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) allowed the use of his feathers on the club badge. The club's most famous player was Jack Hobbs, who began playing for the county in 1905, and he had a notable opening partner till 1914 in Tom Hayward, who scored 3,518 runs in all first-class cricket in 1906, equalled C.B. Fry's record of 13 centuries in a season and, in one six-day period, scored two centuries at Trent Bridge and two more at Leicester. He scored his hundredth hundred at The Oval in 1913. Between the two World Wars, Surrey often had a good side, but it tended to be stronger in batting than in bowling; Hobbs played until 1934 with another good opening partner in Andrew Sandham. Hobbs scored more runs (61,760) and compiled more centuries (199) in first-class cricket than any other player in the history of the game. In recognition of his contribution to the team, the eponymous Jack Hobbs Gates were inaugurated at The Oval.
  The side was not completely bereft of quality in the bowling department, however: Alf Gover took 200 wickets in both 1936 and 1937, a fine achievement for a fast bowler on the flat Oval track. The Oval pitches of this period tended to be very good for batting, and many matches were drawn. The club captain for much of this period was the affable and bohemian Percy Fender, whose closest colleague was the England captain of Bodyline fame (or infamy), Douglas Jardine. In 1938, Surrey played a home match away from The Oval for the first time, at Woodbridge Road in Guildford. After 1939, cricket took a break as the Second World War occupied the nation and The Oval was seized for Government use.
caption: Surrey's all-time top scorer Jack Hobbs.
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