Nottinghamshire cricket supporters, led by William Clarke, having vanquished all the opposition north of London in the early 1830s, decided in 1835 to match the County’s talent against the best in cricket’s heartland.

The County challenged Sussex to fixtures, home and away in 1835. For nearly a decade the two premier counties, Kent and Sussex had fought each other to decide which of them was ‘Champion County of England’. In effect it was a duopoly; in the 18th century Hampshire and Surrey had also raised strong county teams, but both were now in eclipse.

Notts travelled to Brighton and won. Sussex came to Nottingham; enormous crowds filled The Forest Ground for this great clash between north and south. Notts were again victorious.

It was one of the finest moments in the county’s sporting history. Clarke’s next goal was to beat Kent, but in 1836 the MCC introduced a new innovation – two matches between teams representing the North and the South. One game was arranged for Lord’s, the north match was set to be played at Leicester, despite the fact that the large majority of the Northern Eleven were, naturally Notts men.

The factor that favoured Leicester was the existence of a large private enclosed ground in that town – The Forest was open and free to all comers. So Leicester it was. Clarke was not amused. He refused to play – the South won at Leicester by 218 runs.

In 1837 Notts again arranged home and away matches with Sussex and whilst in the south, took on Kent. Because there was no County organisation in Notts, the team relied on a few individuals to finance the away games and their reward was a place in the County side.

In most cases this clearly was a handicap, but it had to be accepted. Clarke did not play in the two away games (possibly due to the ill-health of his wife – she died in September of the same year). The two away games were lost, but Sussex were again beaten on The Forest.

Three months after his wife’s death, Clarke remarried, to Mrs Mary Chapman, landlady of the Trent Bridge Inn. Six months later he converted the field at the rear of the Inn into an enclosed cricket ground. ‘Trent Bridge’ was born.

No county games took place in either 1838 or 1839, but the three fixtures of 1837 were repeated in 1840 and the following season, Kent came to Nottingham for the first time. The result of the four games were two Notts defeats at the hands of Sussex; Kent were beaten away, but, despite having ten men beat Notts at Trent Bridge. The title of Champion County remained anchored in the South.

This didn’t deter Clarke who then challenged England (basically Kent and Sussex combined) to a match in 1842. Clarke took seven wickets in the England innings, but the Notts batting failed twice – Clarke, in fact made the most runs for Notts – and the game was lost by ten wickets.

It was typical of Clarke that he arranged this Notts v England match, after having had a blazing row with MCC over the selection of players for a representative North side. Clarke tried to prove himself in the right!