Kent county cricket teams matches at Town Malling between 1836 and 1841. The expense of running county games meant that Town Malling proved too small to support a county club, despite the large attendances that games attracted, and in 1842 Pilch moved to the Beverley club at Canterbury. Kent struggled against the prominence of Sussex in the early roundarm years but then enjoyed a glorious period in the middle of the century. Rowland Bowen has recorded that a Maidstone newspaper in 1837 described a match between Kent and Nottinghamshire as for the County Championship. This is the earliest known use of the term although
Kent County Cricket Club North and South Downs in Kent and Sussex. The two counties and Surrey were the first centres of the game and the earliest known organised match involving adult players took place in Kent in about 1610 at Chevening, with village cricket developing in the area during the 17th century. A newspaper report recorded an 11-a-side match played for a wager of 11 guineas a man, probably at Town Malling, between West Kent and Chatham in 1705, the first properly recorded cricket match in the county. Four years later the earliest known inter-county match took place when a Kent side and