Old Trafford had been laid out in 1857 as the home of Manchester Cricket Club. Lancashire CCC, formed in 1864, played its first first-class match at the ground in July 1865 against Middlesex and won by 62 runs. Old Trafford has been the home of Lancashire ever since — the second-oldest continuously used first-class venue after Lord's, host of more than 100 Test matches, and the indispensable counterweight to the southern grounds in English cricket geography.
Manchester in the 1850s was the centre of Britain's industrial revolution and a town of 400,000 people, yet had no first-class cricket presence. The eviction of Manchester CC from Chester Road in 1856 forced a rapid relocation. The new Old Trafford site was leased from the de Trafford family.
The opening of the 1857 ground established Manchester CC's permanence. Through the early 1860s pressure grew for a properly constituted county club along Notts and Surrey lines. The formation meeting of January 1864 elected officers and set Old Trafford as the home ground.
The Manchester Cricket Club had been evicted from its previous ground at Chester Road in 1856 to make way for the Royal Botanical and Horticultural Society's exhibition. The new ground at Old Trafford, in then-rural countryside south-west of Manchester, opened in 1857 with a match between Manchester and Liverpool. Lancashire County Cricket Club was formed at a meeting in Manchester on 12 January 1864, with Old Trafford as its designated home ground. Its first first-class match — Lancashire v Middlesex from 20 July 1865 — was won by Lancashire by 62 runs. The ground was unfashionable in its early years (the famous Roses match against Yorkshire only became a draw from 1875) but the long club tradition, the willingness of Manchester businessmen to underwrite improvements, and the rapidly growing population of industrial Lancashire made the financial base secure. Old Trafford hosted its first Test match in 1884 (England v Australia, the third Test of W.G. Grace's home series), the first Test ever played outside Lord's or the Oval. Through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries the ground became central to English cricket: Briggs, Tyldesley, MacLaren, Statham, Flintoff are all part of its lineage. The original Victorian pavilion was replaced in 1894 and again in 2008-13 as part of a major redevelopment, but the playing area has been continuously used since 1857.
1856: Manchester CC evicted from Chester Road
1857: Old Trafford opens with Manchester v Liverpool match
12 Jan 1864: Lancashire CCC formed at meeting in Manchester
20-22 Jul 1865: Lancashire's first first-class match v Middlesex at Old Trafford, won by 62 runs
1875: First Roses match v Yorkshire begins to draw large crowds
1884: First Test match at Old Trafford
1894: New pavilion opens
1856
Manchester CC evicted from Chester Road
1857
Old Trafford opens
12 Jan 1864
Lancashire CCC formed
20 Jul 1865
First first-class match at Old Trafford
10-12 Jul 1884
First Test match at Old Trafford
Old Trafford grew through the late nineteenth century into one of England's premier grounds. The 1884 Test established it as a major international venue; by 1900 it was hosting Test matches every Ashes summer. Lancashire became one of the strongest counties in the official Championship from 1890.
The northern counterweight to Lord's and the Oval — a ground that established that first-class cricket could thrive outside the south of England.
Old Trafford is now the second-oldest continuously used first-class cricket ground in the world after Lord's, with more than 80 Test matches played on it. Its 1865 Lancashire debut is the foundational moment of northern English first-class cricket and of one of the longest unbroken ground-club relationships in world sport.
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.