Gloucestershire County Cricket Club League in 2000. Cricket probably reached Gloucestershire by the end of the 17th century. It is known that the related sport of "Stow-Ball" "aka" "Stob-Ball" was played in the county during the 16th century. In this game, the bat was called a "stave". See Alice B Gomme : "The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland". A game in Gloucester on 22 September 1729 is the earliest definite reference to cricket in the county. From then until the founding of the county club, very little has been found outside parish cricket. In the early 1840s, Dr Henry Grace and his
Fred Grace medicine. On Thursday, 25 June 1868, Grace played for the new Gloucestershire County Cricket Club in its first-ever match, which was a two-day game at Lord's against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). His brothers EM and WG were in the same team but the match was by no means first-class. Gloucestershire won by 134 runs. The county club was not actually new because it had pre-existed for over twenty years as the West Gloucestershire Cricket Club, based in Bristol and effectively run by the Grace family. It renamed itself as the county club in 1867 but it did not have a