List of Leicestershire County Cricket Club grounds

Grace Road in the city of Leicester has staged well over half the county's first-class games and almost every game in List A and Twenty20 cricket.

Leicestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 member clubs of the English County Championship, representing the historic county of Leicestershire. The club was established on 25 March 1879.^[1] It has since played first-class cricket from 1894, List A cricket from 1963 and Twenty20 cricket from 2003.^[2][3][4][A] Unlike most professional sports, in which a team usually has a single fixed home ground, county cricket clubs have traditionally used different grounds in various towns and cities within the county for home matches, although the use of minor "out grounds" has diminished since the 1980s.^[5][6] Leicestershire's first XI have played home matches at fifteen different grounds.

The club's debut home match in first-class cricket was played at Grace Road in Leicester. After the 1900 season, the club ceased using Grace Road,^[7] as it was felt that it was located too far from the centre of the city.^[8] Instead, Aylestone Road became the club's headquarters, and staged nearly 400 first-class matches between 1901 and the outbreak of the Second World War.^[9] Due to a combination of wartime damage and industrial development, however, the club was forced to discontinue using Aylestone Road after the war, and Grace Road once again became the club's main venue.^[8] In the years after the war, the county also utilised grounds in other towns including Hinckley, Melton Mowbray, Barwell and Loughborough.

In addition to the county's inaugural first-class match, Grace Road also played host to Leicestershire's first home games in the other formats of cricket. In 1964 it staged the county's first home List A game against Northamptonshire and in 2003 it was the venue for the county's first home game in Twenty20 cricket against Yorkshire. The ground has hosted the vast majority of the county's games, including every Twenty20 match since the introduction of that format. Since 1991, when the club played its last game at Leicester Road in Hinckley, the only venue other than Grace Road to host any of Leicestershire's matches is the Oakham School Ground, which is actually located in the adjacent county of Rutland.^[10] The school was used for five first-class matches from 2000–07 and nine List A games from 2001–08.

Grounds

Below is a complete list of grounds used by Leicestershire County Cricket Club for first-class, List A and Twenty20 matches. Statistics are complete through to the end of the 2014 season. Only matches played by Leicestershire CCC at the grounds are recorded in the table. Matches abandoned without any play occurring are not included.

Name	Location	First-class			List A			Twenty20
		First	Last	Matches	First	Last	Matches	First	Last	Matches
Grace Road[11]	Leicester	17 May 1894 v Yorkshire	15 September 2014 v Essex	803[7]	27 May 1964 v Northamptonshire	14 August 2014 v Worcestershire	461[12]	16 June 2003 v Yorkshire	18 July 2014 v Durham	61[13]
Aylestone Road[14]	Leicester	13 May 1901 v Surrey	16 June 1962 v Cambridge University	399[9]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Ashby Road[15]	Hinckley	19 August 1911 v Warwickshire	17 July 1937 v Worcestershire	19[16]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Bath Grounds[17]	Ashby-de-la-Zouch	20 June 1912 v Derbyshire	6 June 1964 v Derbyshire	43[18]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Park Road[19]	Loughborough	31 May 1913 v Nottinghamshire	9 August 1952 v Kent	15[20]	2 August 1970 v Nottinghamshire	no other matches to date	1[21]	–	–	0
Fox and Goose Ground[22]	Coalville	12 June 1913 v Worcestershire	11 July 1914 v Worcestershire	2[23]	–	–	0	–	–	0
College Ground[24]	Loughborough	13 June 1928 v Derbyshire	6 July 1929 v Glamorgan	2[25]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Oakham School Ground[26]	Oakham	31 August 1935 v Kent	30 May 2007 v Nottinghamshire	9[27]	3 June 2001 v Nottinghamshire	28 May 2008 v Nottinghamshire	9[28]	–	–	0
Egerton Park [29]	Melton Mowbray	1 June 1946 v Somerset	29 May 1948 v Kent	3[30]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Kirkby Road[31]	Barwell	19 June 1946 v Lancashire	25 June 1947 v Worcestershire	3[32]	–	–	0^[B]	–	–	0
Town Ground[33]	Coalville	10 June 1950 v Warwickshire	no other matches to date	1[34]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Coventry Road[35]	Hinckley	23 June 1951 v Middlesex	22 July 1964 v Kent	17[36]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Brush Ground[37]	Loughborough	16 May 1953 v Hampshire	19 June 1965 v Middlesex	16[38]	–	–	0	–	–	0
Snibston Colliery Ground[39]	Coalville	5 June 1957 v Glamorgan	10 July 1982 v Derbyshire	8[40]	12 July 1970 v Glamorgan	no other matches to date	1[41]	–	–	0
Leicester Road[42]	Hinckley	29 July 1981 v Nottinghamshire	2 July 1991 v Gloucestershire	11[43]	3 June 1984 v Essex	no other matches to date	1[44]^[B]	–	–	0

Notes

A. ^ First-class cricket matches are designed to be contested over multiple days, with each team permitted two innings with no limit to the number of overs in an innings.^[45] List A matches, also known as limited overs or one-day matches, are intended to be completed in a single day and restrict each team to a single innings of between 40 and 60 overs, depending on the specific competition.^[46] Twenty20 matches restrict each team to a single innings of 20 overs.^[47]

B. ^ The Leicestershire Cricket Board team played one List A match at each of Kirkby Road and Leicester Road in 2001.^[48] The Leicestershire Cricket Board is a separate organisation from Leicestershire County Cricket Club and its matches are not included in the totals.

References

1. Marshall, Ian (2015). Playfair Cricket Annual 2015. Hachette UK. p. 1871. ISBN 978-1-4722-1218-4.
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6. Stockton, Edward (13 June 2006). "Out of town but not out of favour". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
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8. Williamson, Martin. "Leicester Electricity Sports Cricket Club Ground". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
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10. "Oakham School - Contact Us". Oakham School. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
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22. "Fox and Goose Ground, Coalville". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
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31. "Kirkby Road, Barwell". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
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33. "Town Ground, Coalville". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
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36. "First-Class Matches played on Coventry Road, Hinckley (17)". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
37. "Brush Ground, Loughborough". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
38. "First-Class Matches played on Brush Ground, Loughborough (16)". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
39. "Snibston Colliery Ground, Coalville". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
40. "First-Class Matches played on Snibston Colliery Ground, Coalville (8)". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
41. "List A Matches played on Snibston Colliery Ground, Coalville (1)". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
42. "Leicester Road, Hinckley". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
43. "First-Class Matches played on Leicester Road, Hinckley (11)". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
44. "List A Matches played on Leicester Road, Hinckley (1)". CricketArchive. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
45. "The LV= County Championship, Other First Class Matches and Non-First Class MCC University Matches against Counties" (pdf). England and Wales Cricket Board. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
46. Knight, Julian (2011). "Losing Cricket's Stuffy Image: Introducing One-Day Cricket". Cricket for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
47. "NatWest T20 Blast" (pdf). England and Wales Cricket Board. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
48. "List A Matches played by Leicestershire Cricket Board". CricketArchive. Retrieved 3 November 2015.