WIMBLEDON, one of the oldest cricket clubs in England, will celebrate their 150th birthday tomorrow. A cocktail party for invited guests is being held in the evening at the pavilion, with the club playing a special anniversary match against Old England on July 11.

Apart from being one of the most venerable clubs in the country, Wimbledon are one of the wealthiest. They receive a six-figure sum each year from the neighbouring All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club for use of their nine-acre site for parking and corporate hospitality during the Championships. The accumulated money was used to fund a new £1.3 million clubhouse in 1997, the previous one being only 20 years old.

The first match the club played, on May 19, 1854, took place not on the present ground in Church Road, but on Wimbledon Common. In his soon-to-be-published history of the club, Stephen Chalke reveals how Wimbledon was an affluent village at the time, recently opened up by the new Woking to Waterloo railway line. “It was a gentlemen’s club originally and it was not until 1889 that they moved to Church Road (originally on a lease-holding basis),” Chalke says. “In 1899, they had the foresight to buy it from the then Earl Spencer.”

Since joining the Surrey Championship in 1980, they have won the title eight times. Now the club provide a thriving centre of all-round sporting excellence, with tennis, squash and hockey teams swelling membership to more than 1,000. There are also 300 junior cricket members.