Durham played its first competitive match in June 1882, beating Northumberland by four wickets at Ashbrooke in Sunderland. Over the decades that followed, the club became the dominant force in the Minor Counties Championship — winning it a record-equalling seven times and, in 1973, becoming the first minor county ever to beat a first-class side in the Gillette Cup when it defeated Yorkshire.

Between 1976 and 1982 Durham went 65 matches unbeaten, a minor-county record that still stands today. That sustained excellence made the case impossible to ignore, and in December 1991 the club was awarded first-class status — the first new county to join the Championship in 70 years. Durham took the field as the youngest first-class county in 1992, with names like Ian Botham, Dean Jones and Wayne Larkins pulling on the shirt in those early seasons.