Titles, setbacks and a reset: 30 years of Durham in the County Championship

“It was a bit like The Magnificent Seven, and I use that comparison in the most liberal sense,” says David Graveney of Durham’s breakout summer of 1992. Having mined the local leagues and offered a last hurrah to a motley crew of ageing stars, it was Larkins, Botham and Bainbridge rather than McQueen, Bronson and Brynner who took the field for the club’s first season as a first-class county.

Graveney, then 39, arrived in the north-east having spent a solitary season at Somerset following almost 20 years with Gloucestershire. It was his task to captain the side after being convinced to take on the role by his close friend Geoff Cook. “Working with Geoff was just a dream come true for me,” says the former left-arm spinner. “He had enthusiasm, calmness, wisdom, and he’d been a fantastic player.”

Cook, a tough-as-teak opener who won seven Test caps for England, is the thread that stitches this whole story together; from those early years when he was called upon to provide credibility to Durham’s audacious bid to join the top table of the domestic game, through to the formation of the club’s extraordinarily fertile academy that he oversaw for many years, and eventually to the trophies that followed. “I’d name the whole ground after him,” said Steve Harmison when Cook stepped down as director of cricket in 2018.

Founded in 1882, Durham County Cricket Club has a rich history – they were the first Minor County to defeat a first-class team when they shocked Geoffrey Boycott’s Yorkshire at Harrogate in 1973 and went 65 games unbeaten between 1976 and 1982, paving the way for their elevation. It was the north-east’s passion for the game, personified by Durham’s indomitable chairman Don Robson, which helped persuade English