Sefton Park Cricket Club

  

Sefton Cricket Club was formed in 1862. The first ground was on Smithdown Road bounded on one side by what is now Langdale Road. The Club move to its present ground in Sefton Park in 1876.
The early records records mention two brothers Charles and Fred Jones and more notably Edward Roper. In 1877 a match between United South of England and Sefton and District featured these three players on the Sefton and District side and three Gloucestershire players W G Grace, G F Grace and W R Gilbert. The match was won by the South of England thanks to the performance of G F Grace.

Edward Roper was first mentioned for taking a team of Seftonites to Redcar in 1863 at the age of 13. Two years later it is recorded that he played for Sefton at Smithdown Road in a game against Birkenhead Victoria.
F J Jones
C L Jones
  
E Roper

Roper continued to play until 1893 and received a testimonial of £500 subscribed to by 212 members of the club. After his death in 1921 a memorial tablet was presented to the club and unveiled on 22nd April 1923. The names the clubs who subscribed to the tablet are inscribed around its edge.

The tablet is mentioned because it now forms the centrepiece on the Memorabilia Wall, which contains many interesting photographs and other mementos such as a blazer and ties, and helps tell the story of Sefton Cricket Club.

Opposite the Memorabilia Wall is a picture of William Findlay who kept wicket for the club for a short while at the beginning of the century before playing for Lancashire. He later became well known as an administrator and was Secretary of MCC during the Bodyline Tour.

 
Memorabilia Wall

The clubs who went on to form the Liverpool Competition began to play each other as early as 1850, and a set of regular fixtures gradually evolved for most clubs, but it was not until 1892 that a Liverpool newspaper printed a weekly table. Sefton was a member of the original table of eleven clubs. The League eventually became sixteen clubs and with some minor changes continued like this until 1996. Various new clubs were then added and in 1999 the Competiton became two divisions. In 1998 Sefton became Sefton Park Cricket Club.

Sefton won the Liverpool Competition in 1967 and 1972 and in the future it is hoped to expand this page and report on more interesting games over the club's history and the players that were involved in these games.

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