In 1832 the first recorded cricket match was played on the meadow at Eastbourne known as the Saffrons, named for the saffron crocuses once grown there. The ground would become one of the longest continuously used cricket venues in England and the regular home of Eastbourne Cricket Club, hosting Sussex county fixtures and, in the twentieth century, Australian touring sides.
Sussex was already a cricketing county of the first rank by 1830, with William Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge driving the roundarm revolution. Eastbourne, then a small parish, was developing rapidly under the patronage of the Cavendish family.
Eastbourne in the 1820s was still a string of separate villages on the South Downs. The Saffrons, a level area of about ten acres on the edge of the parish, had been used for grazing and as a saffron field — the crop that gave the ground its name. By the early 1830s the rapidly growing seaside town had a cricket-playing community, and on a date in the summer of 1832 (the precise day is lost; surviving references in the Sussex press place it in August) the first match was played there. The fixture was between local sides; the score is not preserved. What matters is the date, because the Saffrons has been used for cricket every summer since, making it one of the half-dozen oldest continuously used grounds in the country. Eastbourne Cricket Club was formally constituted in 1851 and took the Saffrons as its home; Sussex began to play county matches there in the 1880s. The ground today retains its open Sussex Downs aspect — no permanent stands, the pavilion at one end, the town pressing close on the other sides.
1832: First recorded cricket match at the Saffrons, Eastbourne
1851: Eastbourne Cricket Club formally constituted
1880s: Sussex begin playing county fixtures at the Saffrons
20th century: Australian touring sides regularly play at the ground
Aug 1832
First recorded cricket match at the Saffrons
1851
Eastbourne Cricket Club formally constituted
1880s
First Sussex county matches at the ground
The Saffrons grew into a regular Sussex out-ground and a favourite of touring sides. The Eastbourne Festival of the late nineteenth century drew W.G. Grace and the leading professionals of the day. Modern Sussex still occasionally play county fixtures at the ground.
The founding moment of one of the longest continuously used cricket grounds in England.
The Saffrons is now one of the oldest cricket grounds in continuous use in England. The 1832 first match is the conventional starting point of the ground's history and is commemorated on the modern pavilion's honours board.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.