Free Foresters Cricket Club
Established	1856
Founders	Rev William Kirkpatrick Riland Bedford
First match	v Pilgrims of the Dee 20 July, 1856
First-class matches	83 (1912–1968)

Free Foresters Cricket Club is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 amateur cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 club, established in 1856 for players from the Midland counties of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is a 'wandering' (or nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic) club, having no home ground.

The Free Foresters were founded by Rev William Kirkpatrick Riland Bedford who had been appointed rector of Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...

 in 1850. At Oxford University, he had discovered Cricket and in 1847 he had set up the Sutton Coldfield Cricket Club. The name of the Free Foresters was chosen to reflect the fact that archery had been popular at the Rectory Park long before cricket was introduced. The club played its first match on 20 July, 1856 against the Pilgrims of the Dee, at the Rectory Ground in Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...

. In 1863, the Free Foresters presented the Rector with a silver salver as a token of their esteem. The salver can be seen at Lord's cricket ground. For many years, starting in 1912, their matches against Oxford

Oxford University Cricket Club

Oxford University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team, representing the University of Oxford. It plays its home games at the University Parks in Oxford, England...

 and Cambridge Universities

Cambridge University Cricket Club

Cambridge University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team. It now plays all but one of its first-class cricket matches as part of the Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence , which includes Anglia Ruskin University...

 unaccountably had first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 status, the last such game being that against Oxford at The Parks in June 1968. The Foresters' side in that match, which they won by 299 runs, was captained by Donald Carr

Donald Carr

Donald Bryce Carr is a former English cricketer who played for Derbyshire from 1946 to 1967, for Oxford University from 1948 to 1951, and twice for England in 1951/52. He captained Derbyshire between 1955 and 1962, and scored over 10,000 runs for the county...

 and included Mike Brearley

Mike Brearley

John Michael Brearley OBE is a former cricketer who captained the England cricket team in 31 of his 39 Test matches, winning 17 and losing only 4. He was the President of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 2007–08.-Early life:...

, Mike Groves

Mike Groves

Michael Godfrey Melvin Groves played first-class cricket for Western Province, Oxford University, Somerset, MCC and the Free Foresters between 1961 and 1968...

, Richard Hutton and Gamini Goonesena

Gamini Goonesena

Gamini Goonesena , born in Colombo, was a Sri Lankan first-class cricketer prior to his country being granted Test status...

.

The team colours are crimson, green and white, adopted in 1858. The badge consists of two capital Fs wrapped in a Hastings knot

Hungerford knot

The Hungerford or Hastings knot is a type of decorative unknot, and is a heraldic knot used primarily in English heraldry. It is most notable for its appearance on the Hungerford and Hastings family heraldic badges....

, with the motto 'United though Untied', signifying that players are free to play for other clubs, and even play against Free Foresters.

External links

• Free Foresters club history
• Lists of matches played by Free Foresters. www.cricketarchive.com.
• Players who have played for Free Foresters. www.cricketarchive.com.