Kent County Cricket Club
As the team built around Pilch retired from cricket the fortunes of the club declined, the county sometimes forced to field teams of up to 16 or to combine with other clubs in order to compete. Financial difficulties followed and on 1 March 1859 a second county club was formed in Maidstone to support the Canterbury-based club. The two clubs, the Canterbury club known as East Kent, the Maidstone club as West Kent, co-operated to an extent, although the relationship was later described as "anything but satisfactory". The standard of cricket played by the county side, generally organised by the West Kent club, remained poor and the county found it difficult to attract either the best amateur players or professionals to appear, many amateurs only willing to appear during Canterbury Cricket Week. Financial difficulties also caused problems producing competitive sides. An 1870 meeting chaired by the 3rd Lord Harris at the Bull Inn at Rochester saw the two clubs merge to form the present day Kent County Cricket Club.
Woolwich Cricket Club
Woolwich Cricket Club was an English cricket club based in the town of Woolwich, Kent. It was formed sometime in the first half of the 18th century, or earlier, and its earliest known record is in 1754 when its team played two matches against the prominent Dartford Cricket Club. The club, or at least a successor of it, then played a number of matches from 1797 to 1806 against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), Montpelier Cricket Club, Croydon Cricket Club and other leading town clubs. After playing MCC in 1806, the club disappeared from the records. Throughout the period from 1754 to 1806, Woolwich's home ground was Barrack Field, part of Woolwich Common, which remains the home ground of the Royal Artillery Cricket Club (RACC). Mainstays of the club in its "Napoleonic" period were William Ayling, John Tanner and John Ward.