Northamptonshire had played a couple of very success full games at Kettering prior to the start of the 1924 season and the Evening Telegraph asked the question that if Kettering and Peterborough can stage successful first class games why not Rushden? In season 1924 Rushden staged a first team Friendly game against Dublin University. There is no evidence to suggest if the game was a success or not as the next fixture was not staged until 1936 with a fixture against Sussex. This fixture was reduced to one day by the weather and Northants became the fist team to be awarded ten points for winning the game on first innings.

The club then staged games until 1963 apart from the war years and a missing year in 1961.

The facilities were very basic prior to the war with no running water in the pavilion and fresh water being drawn from a standpipe for washing. The toilet facilities were a bucket in a wooden shed, but on a brighter note the dinners were described as the best on the County circuit by the Glamorgan Captain John Clay. John Arlott commenting on a match on the radio described the wooden Victorian pavilion as looking like a Chinese pagoda. He was not so complimentary of the tin fences and adjoining council houses.

The scheduled match in May 1963 against Lancashire it was well known locally that the fixture for future years was under threat. Charles May the Rushden groundsman dutifully prepared a wicket for the game but this was changed to another strip by the County Groundsman Norman Hever. The ball kept low throughout the match, Northants were well beaten after bowling Lancashire out for 99 on the first morning and the toilets were still pretty grim. So this match turned out to the last first class match played on the Rushden ground.

To find a full list of all the First Class games, and Second Eleven games together with the full scorecards played at Rushden see the following website details:

Google. Cricket Archive Archive . Cricket Grounds Counties Town Ground Rushden.

Written and Researched by Nigel Chettle