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 one from Surrey played against each other on Dartford Brent. Dartford was an important club in the first half of the 18th century. It came under the patronage of Edwin Stead through the 1720s and its team began to become rather more representative of Kent as a county, often playing against teams from Sussex. There were three Kent v Sussex matches in 1728 and Stead's team won them all. After the third win, a newspaper reported the outcome as "the third time this summer that the Kent men have been too expert for those of Sussex". This proclamation of Kent's superiority is the first time that the concept of a "Champion County" can be seen in the sources and it is augmented by comments made in other newspaper reports in the next two years.