History of field hockey a winter activity. They experimented with a ‘stick’ game, based loosely on the rules of association football. Teddington played the game on the smooth outfield of their cricket pitch and used a cricket ball, so allowing smooth and predictable motion. By 1874 they had begun to draw up rules for their game, including banning the raising of the stick above shoulder height and stipulating that a shot at goal must take place within the circle in front of it. An association was formed in 1875, which dissolved after seven years, but in 1886 the Hockey Association was formed by seven
Variations in published cricket statistics the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) committee and the secretaries of the clubs involved in the official County Championship, which had begun in 1890. As a result, those clubs became officially first-class from 1895 along with MCC, Cambridge University, Oxford University, the main international touring teams and other teams designated as such by MCC: e.g., North v South, Gentlemen v Players. First-class cricket was formally defined by the then Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC) in May 1947 as a match of three or more days' duration between two sides of eleven players officially adjudged first-class; the governing body in each country to