The North Main Road cricket ground is situated in Scarborough in North Yorkshire of England. This ground is also home of Scarborough Cricket Club. There are various events, tournaments and games which are held in this ground. One of them includes the Scarborough Cricket Festival. The Yorkshire County Cricket Club also plays a series of fixtures which are held in the second half of the season each year. The present capacity of the ground is 11,500 with the record attendance scoring to 22,946 people who came to watch the Yorkshire team play Derbyshire in 1947. The two ends of the ground are called as the Trafalgar Square End and the Pavilion End.
The ground details
This ground was established in the year 1863 with a capacity of 11,500 people. The owner of this ground is Scarborough Cricket Club. Since 1849, the matches were being played at the Castle Hill in Scarborough. Cricket was first played in this ground in 1863 when Jackson’s tenancy of the field on North Marine Road was obtained. Yorkshire has played since 1878, when they lost the match by 7 wickets against MCC.
The ground history
This ground is located very close to the sea and has a raised cricket pavilion which was built at a cost of 2150 pounds in 1895. In 1902, a new seating enclosure got added and extended to over the next five years. Later on, a concrete stand got added in 1926 which was at a cost of 6,700 pounds and by 1956; a new West stand got erected costing to 16,000 pounds. Recently, in 1995, the at the cost of 210,000 pounds, the Jack Knowles Building was built. In 1997, a new all weather resistant nets, along with a press box was constructed at a cost of 50,000 pounds. The tea rooms and the enclosure were refurbished at a cost of 95,000 pounds in 1998.
The first County Championship match was held in 1896, with Yorkshire team defeating the Leicestershire team by 162 runs. Scarborough is the only steady venue for county cricket in Yorkshire apart from Headingley in Leeds. The ground has a fast scoring outfield and hosts Senior Premier League matches, with ECB representatives games of under 19 and women’s test matches too are held in the recent years. Moreover, the ground is even used for Scarborough Hockey Club fixtures.
At the end of the Scarborough Festival, there were many touring teams, large number of tourists staying in the seaside resort, county teams and such home teams that used to play friendly games, with a mixture of one day cricket and championship games. The one day competition of the Fenner Trophy featured four counties which began in 1971 and was till 1996 under many sponsor names. The centenary of the festival was celebrated in the year 1986 when Sir Len Hutton was the president.
The North Marine Road ground has till date staged only two ODI’s with the England team playing against the West Indies and New Zealand team in 1976 and 1978 respectively. In 2005, Yorkshire signed a new deal with the authorities of this ground that ensured that the country would be playing on the ground till 2010.