The fixture card and all those who know the club very well can recite evidence of Cricket on the green in 1859 and therefore and quite rightly assume the formation of the club prior to that date. As yet we have sketchy detail but I happened across a reference to Cricket and Aldborough just this week. The reference is catalogued in what appears to be an unpublished journal entitled “Cricketing References in Norwich Newspapers, 1701 to 1800″ (Penny J. S, Norwich, 1979). The extract is from the The Norfolk Chronicle and reports a cricket match in which Gentlemen of Aldborough were included in a composite team of Aylsham and District. Cricket at Aylsham was chronicled in 1792 where The Norfolk Chronicle (August 18th) reports home news -” Last Monday Afternoon was decided at Aylsham a Cricket Match between married men and youths not pubescent, (11 on each side), which terminated, after a strong and furious contest, in favour of the rising generation.” It is no surprise for those who know the men of Aylsham 2004 that the paper reports  a tough match and continues “No little disparagement to the opposite party“. So at last we can lay blame on the “aggro” gene first noted 212 years ago.

So the Aylsham match appears to be an 18th century equivalent to “dads versus lads”, and with the youth winning it is no surprise that Aylsham calls upon the services of the neighbouring parishes in the aforementioned reference. Maybe this is another morsel of evidence that reflects cricket of today with players being drawn from around to make up a team. In fact in The Rothmans book of Village cricket (Murphy, 1992), Aldborough’s team doyen Ron Dobbie states “the cricket team is happy to sweep a five mile area around Aylsham to find players, especially at harvest time”. I think we are a little more sophisticated that that Ron !, But I suppose it is 2004 now. Back to the Aldborough reference The Norfolk Chronicle of Saturday July 22, 1797 writes (original format):

“On Thurfday fe’ennight was played a match at Cricket, between the gentlemen of Lyng and Elfing, against Aylfham, Blickling, Aldborough, and Thurgaton, which was decided in favour of the former, by seven wickets to go down”.

So played one lost one !