Widnes Cricket Club was established in 1865 as the brainchld of a Gloucestershire man, a one James White.  After relocating to Woodend, as the village where Widnes now stands was chiefly known; to work as a bookkeeper at Gossage's Soap Works, he realised that there was not any local cricket club for him to continue playing at.

After getting together a group of likely young men at the George Hotel in Waterloo Road, Woodend Cricket Club was born. The name of Woodend Cricket Club remained until 1874 when it changed to Widnes Cricket Club.

The first two seasons were played at Ditton Road alongside the McKechnie Brothers works before moving to land on Locket Farm on the left hand side of Peelhouse Lane. Here the club stayed for three seasons before moving again to land on Victoria Road. With the town Widnes quickly growing another move became neccessary to Lower House Lane, the present home of Widnes Vikings RLFC and the Cricketers Arms pub.

One of the great players whilst at Lower House Lane was a Johnny Briggs who went onto to play for Lancashire and England.

The Widnes Coorporation served notice upon the Club to aquire their land to build houses so in 1932 the search was once again on to find a new home for Widnes Cricket Club.

Various sites were viewed and eventually a field on Beaconsfield Road was chosen and leased for ten years. The land was in no fit state for cricket and throughout the winter a great deal of labour, earth and materials were required to get the field into a fit state for cricket and to start the first season in the spring of 1933.

Homelessness beckoned yet again, as the land was wanted for housing.  Afer tremendous fund raising efforts, involving whist drives, carnivals and dances, in February 1939 the Club made its last instalment to buy the land outright for the then not inconsiderable amount of £1,200.

The Club originally played in the West Lancashire League before becoming a founder member of the Merseyside Competition in 1937. Widnes CC was so successful in this league that they moved on, in 1983, to find more competitive cricket in the Manchester & District Association.  Success followed again and Widnes moved up another level to play in its present league - the Cheshire County Cricket League.

The Club has had some great successes over the years and had the pleasure of some great players including overseas players from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies, many of whom have gone to represent their countries at Test level, notably Grant Flower of Zimbabwe.

Today the Club is focussed on providing the very best facilities and forging close community links in order to encourage local youngsters to get involved in the sport of cricket and to represent the Club at the highest levels possible.

Below is a gallery of a selection of our team photographs over the last 100 years.

We wish to have a further galleries containing photographs belonging to members both formal and informal, so if you have any that you wish to share with the rest of the world then please e mail them to pictures@widnescc.co.uk