Woodbrook Cricket Club was a leading Irish

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

club in

Bray, County Wicklow Bray ( ) is a coastal town in north County Wicklow, Ireland. It is situated about south of Dublin city centre on the east coast. It has a population of 32,600 making it the ninth largest urban area within Ireland (at the 2016 census). Bray is ...

from 1905–1913.

History

Following the death of Sir Henry Cochrane in 1904, his son, Stanley Cochrane inherited his fortune and his Woodbrook Estate, located outside of Bray, County Wicklow. A keen cricketer from his days at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

, Cochrane decided to form a cricket club on his newly inherited estate in 1905, laying out a private

cricket ground Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by strikin ...

. He paid around £1,000 to have hundreds of tonnes of clay imported from

Nottinghamshire, England Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The tradition ...

to ensure a top-class playing surface, constructed an indoor cricket school, and hired half a dozen English professional cricketers. Cochrane's vision was to entice the best Irish and English cricketers to represent his new cricket club, as well as bringing

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

to Bray. His ambition to host first-class cricket was achieved in 1907 when

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

hosted

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. Two years later, Cochrane's personal XI played the touring

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at Woodbrook. He also succeeded in attracting professional cricketers to play for the club, including

Len Braund Leonard Charles Braund (18 October 1875 – 23 December 1955) was a cricketer who played for Surrey, Somerset and England. Len Braund was an all-rounder, a versatile batsman who could defend or attack according to the needs of the game and a l ...

Aubrey Faulkner George Aubrey Faulkner (17 December 1881 – 10 September 1930) was a South African cricketer who played 25 Test cricket, Test matches for South Africa national cricket team, South Africa and fought in both the Second Boer War and World War I. ...

Charlie Llewellyn Charles Bennett "Buck" Llewellyn (29 September 1876 – 7 June 1964) was the first non-white South African Test cricketer. He appeared in 15 Test matches for South Africa between 1895 and 1912, and played in English cricket as a professional for ...

Hugh Massie Hugh Hamon Massie (11 April 1854 – 12 October 1938) was a cricketer who played for New South Wales and Australia. Massie's role in the 1882 Ashes Test at The Oval was almost as pivotal in deciding the result as Fred Spofforth's celebrate ...

, Ernie Vogler, and

Teddy Wynyard Edward George Wynyard (1 April 1861 – 30 October 1936) was a British Army officer and an English cricketer who played in three Tests from 1896 to 1906. He captained Hampshire County Cricket Club between 1896 and 1899. Wynyard was also a s ...

. The club hosted first-class cricket twice in 1912, and once more in 1913. In the final years of the club's existence, crowd attendances began to drop, and in a desperate measure to revive the club's fortunes, Cochrane attempted to get the deciding

Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

of the

1912 Triangular Tournament The 1912 Triangular Tournament was a Test cricket competition played between Australia, England and South Africa, the only Test-playing nations at the time. The ultimate winners of the tournament were England, with four wins in their six matches ...

between

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and Australia to be played at Woodbrook, but this request was denied by both boards. Disenchanted by this decision, he wound up the club in 1913 and opted to construct a

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

in its place.

Woodbrook Club and Ground

The club often played under the name Woodbrook Club and Ground for some of its matches, first playing under that name in 1907 against a touring

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

side, with the team regularly playing under this name against touring teams and

English county The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...

opposition. The team featured in one first-class match, in 1912 against the touring South Africans. The Woodbrook team, which was captained by Cochrane himself, also featured the Test cricketer Ernie Vogler and arguably the leading Irish cricketer of the time, William Pollock. The 3-day match ended as a draw.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodbrook Club and Ground 1905 establishments in Ireland Sport in County Wicklow Cricket clubs in Leinster Former senior cricket clubs 1913 disestablishments in Ireland Bray, County Wicklow