Trafalgar Road

Birkdale Cricket Club played its first match at Trafalgar Road on 25th May 1874 and after amalgamation with Southport Cricket Club in 1902, it has remained the home of Southport & Birkdale Cricket Club ever since.

It was originally part of a much larger plot of 250 acres which had only two months before been purchased by the Birkdale Park Land Company from the Weld-Blundell estate for £20 per acre.

The Land Company, when it leased the ground to the cricketers in 1874 only granted a none year Lease.

In 1880 a contract was made with two “Labourers” John Lloyd and Thomas Marshall of Birkdale to “level, sod and lay with good turf sixty yards by forty yards of the field” for which they were paid one penny for every square yard they completed. A year later, in 1881 the Birkdale Cricket Club erected a pavilion which for its time was quite imposing, at a cost of £300. This original pavilion stood until 1965.

The Ground was at this time isolated from the town of Southport with the tramway only running as far as the Birkdale Town Hall at Weld Road which meant quite a walk. It was not until 1906 that the tramline was extended as far as Smedley Hydro at the Grosvenor Road corner thus helping to put the club on the map so far as accessibility was concerned.