Origin , the first captain of Yorkshire: he led the team until 1872. On 7 March 1861, during a meeting at the
Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield, a Match Fund Committee was established to run Yorkshire county matches. The committee was made up from the management committee of the Bramall Lane ground and representatives from clubs willing to pay
£1 to the fund. But the committee was unable to persuade other clubs that it was not seeking to promote Sheffield cricket and a lack of funds prevented some matches being played in 1862. By this time, there were several cricketers with good reputations and the county team was one of the strongest in England. Consequently, on 8 January 1863, Yorkshire County Cricket Club was formed. Membership was unlimited and cost a minimum of
10s and
6d. Like most first-class cricket clubs of the time, Yorkshire relied on private patronage with administrators "paying to serve" and "moneyed enthusiasts" acting as ready match sponsors. The majority of players were freelance professionals who were paid a usual match fee of £5, from which all travel and accommodation had to be paid. Travel could be arduous, living away from home could be "rough" and sometimes the match fee was not enough to cover expenses, especially if, as was often a problem with early Yorkshire cricketers, "the ale-house was a temptation". The first club President was former player
Thomas Barker, who had become
Mayor of Sheffield, although he probably never attended any meetings.
Michael Ellison was the first club Treasurer and at some point early in Yorkshire's history, he assumed the
Presidency. Most official accounts record Ellison as Yorkshire's first President.
Joseph ("J. B.") Wostinholm became the first of four long-serving club Secretaries in 1864. The first team
captain was
Roger Iddison, a professional cricketer. The objective of the club was to play matches "either in Sheffield or in any other towns of the county according as arrangements may be made". Other locations in
Yorkshire were unable or unwilling to host fixtures in the first years of the club, and Bradford and York continued to attempt to organise games in competition with Yorkshire, sometimes causing confusion among other counties. Attempts to form an alternative Yorkshire team continued intermittently until 1884 although, by 1873, most clubs had accepted the authority of the Sheffield-based county club.
1863–1882 , a key factor in Yorkshire's success in the late 1860s, played for the team mainly between 1865 and 1870, taking 209 wickets in 32 matches. Yorkshire played their inaugural
first-class cricket match against
Surrey at
The Oval on 4, 5 and 6 June 1863. Surrey scored 315 runs, to which Yorkshire replied with 257. Surrey were bowled out for 60 before the match was drawn. The team recorded their first win in the following match against the strong
Nottinghamshire team and although they lost the return match, won two and lost only one of the four matches played in their first season. In 1864, the team won two and lost four of seven matches. In 1865, the club and players became involved in a dispute. Five players – Roger Iddison,
George Anderson,
George Atkinson,
Joseph Rowbotham and
Ned Stephenson – refused to play against Surrey. This concerned a controversy that arose in 1862 when Iddison and Anderson played for an All-England team against Surrey at The Oval and the Kent bowler
Edgar Willsher was repeatedly no-balled for using an overarm action by an
umpire whom, they claimed, had been appointed by Surrey specifically for that purpose. Anderson stated in 1865 that he "would not play against those who have combined to sweep us from the cricket field altogether if they could". The dispute was about a point of principle and centred on the right of bowlers to use an overarm action, which had been legalised ahead of the 1864 season. Consequently, with several important players missing, Yorkshire did not win a game in 1865 and were forced to cancel some matches for the 1866 season. The Yorkshire Committee and the players came to an understanding in early 1867 after the players apologised, but Anderson never represented the county again. With the player dispute resolved, Yorkshire won all seven of their matches in 1867, defeating Surrey,
Lancashire and
Cambridgeshire. As a result, the sporting press proclaimed Yorkshire to be the "
Champion County" for the first time. The following year,
John Thewlis scored the first
century for Yorkshire in first-class cricket, against Surrey at The Oval; in 1869, Joseph Rowbotham became the first man to score two centuries in a season for Yorkshire. Yorkshire won four games in both 1868 and 1869; one sports publication regarded Yorkshire as equal champions in the latter year. The team won six out of seven in 1870 to be acclaimed as Champion County again. Much of Yorkshire's success in these years came from the bowling combination of
George Freeman and
Tom Emmett. Following Freeman's retirement from regular
cricket after 1870, Yorkshire declined, winning fewer games in 1871 and 1872 as
Gloucestershire rose to a position of dominance in County Cricket, driven by the success of
W. G. Grace and his brothers. Conscious of the need to strengthen the club, Yorkshire instituted a Colts team of young players, but replaced Iddison as captain at the end of the 1872 season. Rowbotham, another professional, assumed the position. For the 1873 season, county cricket moved a step closer towards an organised competition when the counties agreed qualification rules for players to be eligible for a team; for many years, this was considered to be start of the
County Championship. However, the counties did not organise a formal competition and the "Champion County" was still decided by the press; some publications disagreed. .
Back row: G. Martin (umpire),
John Thewlis.
Middle row:
George Pinder,
George Ulyett,
Tom Armitage, Joseph Rowbotham,
Allen Hill,
Andrew Greenwood.
Front row:
Tom Emmett,
John Hicks,
Ephraim Lockwood,
Charlie Ullathorne. Despite the team containing effective players, Yorkshire did not perform as well as expected over the next seasons. The bowling attack was strong, the team contained some experienced players and critics believed
Ephraim Lockwood to be the best professional batsman in the country. In 1873, Yorkshire won seven games and lost five and for the following season,
Luke Greenwood replaced Rowbotham as captain. The team had an improved record, but although second only to Gloucestershire, Yorkshire lost heavily in both encounters between the teams. Greenwood retired, Rowbotham resumed the captaincy for 1875, and Lockwood took over in 1876. The team did not perform particularly well in either season, but their worst performance came in 1877, winning two games – but none of the last ten – and losing seven. This placed them eighth out of nine counties. Tom Emmett then took over as captain, but the following two seasons brought mixed results as the team displayed inconsistency, often losing to teams they should comfortably have beaten. Derek Hodgson, in his official county history, suggests a lack of discipline in the team throughout these years was to blame; contemporary reports suggested the team drank too much alcohol to be effective. The players also suffered from public attention, receiving generous hospitality at times which impacted on their performances. In these seasons, the team often began well only to lose form later in the season and the Yorkshire committee was reluctant to replace the experienced cricketers with younger players. However, off the field, Yorkshire became increasingly successful, and the profits made by the club paid for improvements to be made to the Bramall Lane Ground and increased player wages through the introduction of travelling expenses and talent money where good performances were financially rewarded. An influx of what proved to be effective new players saw Yorkshire finish second to Lancashire in the unofficial Championship for 1881, but more significant was the debut for the county of
Lord Hawke, then aged 21. The team faded again in 1882 and Hawke, who had refused the captaincy earlier, was appointed team captain at the end of the season, the first amateur to hold this position. Previous captains had all been professionals: Roger Iddison (1863–1872), Joseph Rowbotham (1873 and 1875), Luke Greenwood (1874), Ephraim Lockwood (1876–1877) and Tom Emmett (1878–1882). Hawke remained in charge for 28 seasons until 1910, during which time the team won eight County Championships.
1883–1918 by
Spy, first published in
Vanity Fair on 24 September 1892 with the caption "Yorkshire Cricket".|alt=A painting of a cricketer sitting in a chair wearing a striped blazer. In an obituary tribute, the editor of ''
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'' said that Lord Hawke's "strength of character was tested" when, as a young man on leaving
Cambridge University, he undertook the responsibility of captaining the Yorkshire team, composed at that time of "elements that were not entirely harmonious". Owing to Hawke's "tact, judgment and integrity", he moulded the Eleven into "the best and probably the most united county cricket team in England". Yorkshire to 1883 was widely seen as an idiosyncratic team and, though Hawke's primary task as captain was to lead the team to fulfilment of its potential, his biggest challenge was to unite the club's geographical and social factions. At the end of the 1882 season, in addition to appointing Hawke as captain, the committee agreed to reorganise itself for the first time since the club's foundation and began a process which eventually made the club representative of the whole county and not just Sheffield. Hawke succeeded Emmett in 1883 and remained as official captain for 27 years, but at first he was careful to take his time and did not make too many changes. Yorkshire improved in 1883 and finished second behind Nottinghamshire in the unofficial County Championship. However, the remainder of the 1880s was disappointing for the team and its supporters. Kilburn said that Yorkshire "continued to be an unreliable side, mingling brilliant achievement with miserable performance". The basic problem was that the older players were past their peak while younger replacements did not make the progress expected. A poor season on the field in 1889 was reflected by reduced income and changes were made with several good new players being introduced. These included
Jack Brown,
David Hunter and
Stanley Jackson, while
Bobby Peel was becoming increasingly effective as a bowling all-rounder. They were followed by
John Tunnicliffe,
David Denton,
Ted Wainwright and
George Hirst. Hawke worked on fielding practice and the players became specialised and efficient as fielders. In 1893, the club's initial reorganisation was completed and was finalised after Ellison died in 1898 and Hawke assumed the club presidency as well as captaincy. When Wostinholm died in 1902 after being club secretary for 38 years, the county offices were moved from Sheffield to the more central location of Leeds. It was in 1893 that the team finally came good and Yorkshire won their first official County Championship. Hodgson wrote that it was "perhaps ... the first confirmation of Hawke's striving for teamwork and discipline". Yorkshire achieved second and third places in 1894 and 1895. The team continued to develop as Brown and Tunnicliffe established an effective opening partnership backed up by Denton and Jackson while Peel, Wainwright and Hirst carried the bowling attack. Yorkshire historian R. S. Holmes described Yorkshire as "prodigious" in 1896, when they won their second title with some outstanding batting performances including a championship record total of 887 against
Warwickshire. Hawke began the practice of paying the professionals over the winter, initially £2 per week; the scheme was later modified to include bonuses. Peel was sacked in 1897 after appearing drunk on the field and was replaced in 1898 by
Wilfred Rhodes, who took 141 wickets in his debut season. In the same season, Brown and Tunnicliffe established a record partnership for the first wicket when they scored 554 against
Derbyshire at Chesterfield. Yorkshire won their third Championship in 1898 and narrowly failed in 1899 when only a defeat late in the season by
Kent prevented the retention of the title. made his debut in 1898 and went on to take a record 3,598 wickets for Yorkshire.|alt=A cricketer about to bowl Between 1900 and 1902, Yorkshire lost only twice in the County Championship, both times to Somerset, and won the County Championship in all three seasons largely thanks to their two outstanding all-rounders Hirst and Rhodes. When Joseph Wolstinholm retired as club secretary after the 1902 season, he was succeeded by
Frederick Toone who held the post until his death in June 1930 and formed a successful liaison with Hawke. Toone and Hawke worked together to improve the terms and conditions of professional players' contracts. To 1914, they were paid £5 for a home match and £6 for an away match with a £1 win bonus. Players who had received their county cap were obliged to join the Cricketers' Friendly Society and were paid a winter wage of £2 a week. Yorkshire remained a strong championship contender through the 1903 to 1914 seasons and won a further three titles in this period, also finishing as runners-up three times. They won their seventh title in 1905 after being third and second in 1903 and 1904 respectively. In 1906, George Hirst achieved a unique "double-double" by scoring 2,385 runs and taking 208 wickets. The 1906 championship was decided on the last day of the season. Yorkshire lost to Gloucestershire by a single run and were overtaken by Kent, who won their last match against Hampshire by an innings. Having finished third in 1907, Yorkshire went through the 1908 season unbeaten and bowled Northamptonshire out for 27 and 15, the aggregate score of 42 being the lowest in English first-class cricket. Yorkshire finished third in 1909 but then dropped to eighth and seventh in the next two seasons before a recovery in 1912 brought their last title before the
First World War. While Hirst, Rhodes and Denton continued to excel, Yorkshire gained much in the last four years before the war from two new all-rounders,
Major Booth and
Alonzo Drake, both of whom were an outstanding success. Another newcomer was
Arthur Dolphin, who replaced the retired David Hunter as first-choice wicketkeeper. In 1913 and the unfinished 1914 season, Yorkshire finished second and fourth. Lord Hawke played only a few matches in 1909 and formally resigned as captain in 1910. He was succeeded by
Everard Radcliffe, who held the post until the end of the 1911 season; and then by
Sir Archibald White, who led the team until the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.
1919–1945 Yorkshire won the first post-war Championship in 1919, a year which saw the debuts of
Herbert Sutcliffe and
Emmott Robinson, and remained a dominant force in the County Championship until the Second World War. They won every year from 1922 to 1925 and seven more times in the 1930s. The team won 25 games in 1923, for instance, with Rhodes and
Roy Kilner doing the double in these matches alone, while four other batsmen scored 1,000 runs and three other bowlers, including
George Macaulay, took 100 wickets. Yorkshire's quintessential rivalry is with
Lancashire via the
Roses Match. The importance of this match reached a peak during the inter-war period when, for many years, Yorkshire and Lancashire were the dominant teams in English cricket. The writings of
Neville Cardus at this time were instrumental in emphasising the sense of rivalry between the two teams. Wilfred Rhodes retired in 1930, taking 73 wickets and scoring 478 runs in his final season at the age of 53.
J. M. Kilburn wrote in the
Yorkshire Post: "He had bowled at
W. G. Grace, and he bowled at
Don Bradman. At 20, at 30, at 40 and at 50 he had shown himself master of his world, and his kingdom was never usurped". Rhodes was succeeded by
Hedley Verity, another skilful slow left armer. In 1932, Verity performed the greatest bowling feat in first-class cricket – ten wickets for ten runs against Nottinghamshire at Headingley.
Percy Holmes and Sutcliffe had a record opening stand of 555 against Essex at Leyton in 1932.
Len Hutton began his career in the 1930s.
1946–1970 Large crowds flocked to the cricket after the Second World War with 47,000 people attending the 3 days of the Roses Match at Bramall Lane in 1946. Yorkshire won the first post-war Championship. New players after the war included spinner
Johnny Wardle, all-rounder
Brian Close and fast bowler
Fred Trueman. Another newcomer
Bob Appleyard became the first bowler to take 200 wickets in his first full season in 1951. The 1950s were dominated by Surrey, who won seven successive championships. Yorkshire had internal problems which were resolved before the
1959 season in which Yorkshire recovered the title under
Ronnie Burnet. The 1960s saw a new Yorkshire team emerge that dominated English cricket. Brian Close was made captain in 1963 and won
the Championship in his first season. The team included Fred Trueman, all-rounder
Ray Illingworth, wicket-keeper
Jimmy Binks and Test batsmen
Geoffrey Boycott,
Doug Padgett,
Phil Sharpe and
John Hampshire. The team began to break up after winning a third successive title
in 1968 and Close was controversially sacked in 1970.
1971–2000 There followed a long-running current of unrest in the club. There was sadness too in 1973 when Bramall Lane, the club's first ever home, was finally closed to cricket after over 400 first-class matches and was converted into a specialist football stadium. Geoff Boycott captained Yorkshire for most of the 1970s, but competitive success eluded the team even when Boycott left Test cricket for three years to concentrate on the county game. He was sacked as captain amid much internal furore after the 1978 season. Ray Illingworth returned from Leicestershire as team manager and, in 1982 at the age of 50, took over the captaincy. Yorkshire finished bottom of the 17-strong County Championship for the first time in 1983 but won the John Player (later National) League for the first time. There was further controversy when Boycott was not offered a new contract. The outcome of this was that the general committee resigned and Boycott, having already been elected to the new committee, was reinstated as a player. Meanwhile, Brian Close became chairman of the cricket committee. Success continued to elude Yorkshire although
Phil Carrick led the team to a Benson and Hedges Cup triumph in 1987. Yorkshire put themselves at a self-evident disadvantage from 1968 until 1992 by insisting that all its players must have been born within the
historic county boundaries of
Yorkshire, while all the other county teams strengthened themselves by signing overseas Test players. In 1992, the birth qualification rule was first modified to include those who had been educated within the county, a dispensation that allowed
Michael Vaughan to play; and was then eventually abandoned altogether. Yorkshire's first ever overseas player that season was 19-year-old
Sachin Tendulkar.
2001 to present Yorkshire finally won the County Championship again in 2001 when the captain was
David Byas. Yorkshire had mixed success in the first decade of the 21st century but finished a close third in the 2010 championship under
Andrew Gale. There had for many years been a controversial issue about the apparent inability of players from Yorkshire's large ethnic minority population to make their way at the club. Tendulkar was the first Asian player to represent Yorkshire, but he was an overseas player. It was not until 2003 that Dewsbury's
Ismail Dawood became the first British-born Asian to play for Yorkshire. He was followed by
Ajmal Shahzad and
Adil Rashid who have both represented England. In 2007,
Azeem Rafiq as a member of Yorkshire's academy team became the first player of an Asian background to captain England at any level when he was appointed U-15 captain. In the summer of 2012, Rafiq stepped in for the injured Andrew Gale to captain the team in six T20 matches, becoming the first player of Asian origin to lead the county, as well as the youngest captain in the club's history. The club were relegated at the end of a disappointing 2011 season, leading to major restructuring in the coaching staff, with former Yorkshire and Australia player
Jason Gillespie brought in as coach. After swiftly regaining promotion, Gillespie set about revamping the team who made a strong title challenge in 2013, eventually finishing runners-up. Yorkshire improved on that by winning the title in both 2014 and 2015, which was their last to date.
Accusations of institutional racism In 2020, Yorkshire were accused of
institutional racism by former player Azeem Rafiq. In 2021, the ECB suspended Yorkshire from holding Test matches because their handling of the issue was causing reputational damage to the sport, while former Yorkshire captain
Gary Ballance, who admitted using
racist language, was indefinitely suspended from national selection. The ECB wrote in a statement that there were problems with the governance and management of the club. ==Badge and colours==