On 19 July 1808 a Brighton club side played a Hove village side on a strip laid out behind the church at Hove — the earliest documented cricket match at Hove, and the founding entry of a venue that would, by the late nineteenth century, become the headquarters of Sussex County Cricket Club.
Hove had been a fishing settlement since the medieval period. Its rapid expansion as a Brighton suburb came after 1820.
Hove in 1808 was a fishing village of perhaps 200 inhabitants, a mile west of the rapidly-growing town of Brighton. A small cricket strip had been laid out behind St Andrew's Church on the village's edge. The July 1808 match — Brighton's club side against the Hove village XI — is the earliest with surviving record, noted in a Brighton newspaper as a Brighton win by 35 runs. Hove village fielded only nine men; Brighton agreed to play the same number.
19 Jul 1808
First documented cricket at Hove
1839
Sussex CCC founded
1872
Present Hove County Ground opens
Cricket continued at Hove through the nineteenth century. The present Hove ground (the County Ground, opened 1872) is half a mile from the 1808 site.
The earliest documented cricket at Hove and the founding entry of one of cricket's important grounds.
Sussex CCC's headquarters at Hove descend from these earliest village matches. The 1808 fixture is the earliest documented in the chain.
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1811-07-04
The 1811 Lord's season was the leanest of the Middle Ground years. With the Napoleonic blockade at its tightest, willow scarce, professionals diverted to militia service and the betting public's purses thin, only fourteen major matches were played at Lord's all summer. The 1811 season is the clearest measure of cricket's wartime contraction.
Officers vs Civilians
1812-12-15
By the close of 1812 cricket was being played regularly in both Madras and Bombay — the earliest documented fixtures in either Presidency. Garrison officers and civilian East India Company servants ran the matches; the Madras Gazette and Bombay Courier preserved the earliest scoresheets. The Calcutta game (documented 1804) had been joined by all three Presidency capitals.
Kent vs MCC
1813-09-09
On 9-10 September 1813 Kent played the MCC at the Vine, Sevenoaks — the first post-war major match at the historic Kent ground and the start of the Vine's revival as a regular major venue. The Vine had hosted little major cricket since 1808; the September 1813 fixture marked its return to the front rank.