Middlesex nearly folded in 1871, saved by a single vote
Seven years after it was founded, Middlesex County Cricket Club was so short of money that members voted on whether to carry on. The result was 7 to 6 in favour. A few years later the club moved into Lord's, and it went on to win thirteen County Championships.
Cricket in London and Middlesex goes back at least to the sixteenth century, though early records often blur city and county. A 1680 reference to two umpires is the first definite mention of the game there, and the first recorded match in the county came on 3 July 1707, when London met Croydon in Holborn. A team called Middlesex first appears on 5 August 1728, playing London Cricket Club behind a pub near Sadler's Wells for £50 a side.
The present club was formally set up at the London Tavern on 2 February 1864, with the Walker family of Southgate central to its creation. Its first first-class match that June, against Sussex in Islington, ended in a win by an innings and 52 runs. After spells at Lillie Bridge and Prince's, and the narrow survival vote, Middlesex accepted an offer from Marylebone Cricket Club in 1876 and played its first county match at Lord's against Yorkshire in June 1877.
The club has produced great batters, including Patsy Hendren, Bill Edrich and Denis Compton. In 1938 Edrich reached 1,000 runs before the end of May, and Don Bradman declared the Australians' innings early to give him the chance. In the championship-winning summer of 1947, Compton scored 3,816 first-class runs with 18 centuries while Edrich added 3,539. The club's golden age ran from 1971 to 1997, while Mike Brearley and then Mike Gatting led the side.
Recent decades have brought swings. Middlesex won the 2008 Twenty20 Cup off the final ball, beating Kent by three runs. In 2009 the limited-overs side stopped calling itself the Crusaders after complaints from Muslim and Jewish groups. They clinched the 2016 championship on the last day by beating Yorkshire at Lord's, their first title since 1993, and won the One-Day Cup in 2026.
Source: Middlesex County Cricket Club
