page_title: Lancashire County Cricket Club
section_title: Early successes
hierarchical_section_title: Lancashire County Cricket Club / History of the county club / Early successes
caption_attribution_description: English: Will's Cigarette Card of Archie MacLaren, part of the 1908 Cricketers series.
context_page_description: Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in English cricket. The club has held first-class status since it was founded in 1864. Lancashire's home is Old Trafford Cricket Ground, although the team also play matches at other grounds around the county. Lancashire was a founder member of the County Championship in 1890 and have won the competition nine times, most recently in 2011. The club's limited overs team is called Lancashire Lightning.
  Lancashire were widely recognised as the Champion County four times between 1879 and 1889. They won their first two County Championship titles in the 1897 and 1904 seasons. Between 1926 and 1934, they won the championship five times. Throughout most of the inter-war period, Lancashire and their neighbours Yorkshire had the best two teams in England and the Roses Matches between them were usually the highlight of the domestic season. In 1950, Lancashire shared the title with Surrey. The County Championship was restructured in 2000 with Lancashire in the first division. They won the 2011 County Championship, a gap of 77 years since the club's last outright title in 1934.
context_section_description: The early Lancashire side was reliant upon amateurs, which led to problems; although they were happy to play at Old Trafford, they were less willing to travel to away fixtures. During the early 1870s, the team was dominated by A. N. Hornby’s batting. The team's standard of cricket improved with the arrival of two professional players, Dick Barlow and Alex Watson. The impact of Barlow and Hornby was such that their batting partnership was immortalised in the poem At Lord’s  by Francis Thompson. The team was further enhanced by A. G. Steel, an amateur sometimes considered second only to W. G. Grace as the country's best all rounder; Johnny Briggs, a professional from Sutton-in-Ashfield and the only player to score 10,000 runs and take 1,000 wickets for Lancashire; and wicket-keeper Dick Pilling, who in 1891 was rated by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack as the second-best wicket-keeper in the world behind Jack Blackham. As Lancashire's consistency improved, so did their support: in 1878, 28,000 over three days watched Lancashire play Gloucestershire.
  The club's first success came in 1879, when the majority of the cricket press – except for Wisden – agreed that Lancashire and Nottinghamshire were joint champions. Lancashire was the champion county in 1881 and again shared the title with Nottinghamshire in 1882.
  Dick Barlow carried his bat for just 5 not out in Lancashire's total of 69 in two and a half hours against Nottinghamshire on a treacherous, rain-affected Trent Bridge pitch in July 1882. Barlow and his longtime opening partner Hornby are the opening batsmen immortalised in the famous poem by Francis Thompson. In 1884, Old Trafford became the second ground, after The Oval, to stage a Test match in England. Though it rained on the first day, 12,000 spectators attended on the second; the match between England and Australia resulted in a draw.
  Controversy emerged during the 1880s; Kent and Nottinghamshire objected to the bowling actions of John Crossland and George Nash. Nottinghamshire even went as far as refusing to play against Lancashire. Although the 1880s was a period of controversy and modest results for the club, it was also a time in which some club records were established. In 1885 George Kemp (later 1st Baron Rochdale) scored Lancashire's first century in a Roses Match. In that same year Johnny Briggs and Dick Pilling set a first-class record partnership for the tenth wicket of 173 that stood until 1899 and has not been bettered by Lancashire. The club shared the title of champions with Surrey in 1889.
  The County Championship was founded in 1890, and champions were decided by points rather than the press as had happened previously. Lancashire was one of the eight founding teams of the championship along with Gloucestershire, Kent, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire. The team was runner up in 1890 and 1891. Archie MacLaren was appointed captain in 1894, four years after making his debut whilst still captain of Harrow. In 1895 MacLaren made his record-breaking innings of 424 against Somerset at Taunton; his innings remained the highest first-class score for an Englishman, was the first first-class quadruple century, and was the highest score in first-class cricket until Bill Ponsford scored 429 in February 1923. Again, Lancashire was runner up in 1895, despite Arthur Mold taking 192 wickets in the season, a feat bettered only twice for the club. The current pavilion was constructed in 1895 and cost £10,000 (£1,160,000 in 2020); it replaced the earlier pavilion, dating from 1857 when Old Trafford was originally built.
  Lancashire won its first county championship in 1897, a productive bowling attack made up of Johnny Briggs, Willis Cuttell, Albert Hallam, and Arthur Mold took 420 wickets between them. In 1898 Lancashire bought the ground and some adjoining land from the de Traffords for £24,732 (£2,780,000 in 2020). In 1902, amateur and professional players began walking onto the field side by side in a break with tradition. Lancashire won its second championship title in 1904, going undefeated th
caption: A 1908 cigarette card of Archie MacLaren who captained the club from 1894 to 1896 and holds the record for the highest first-class score by an Englishman.
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