Club secretary and treasurer Colin Gibson said former member Jamie Bell, now a director of the New Zealand Cricket Museum, had been going through records when he found the club's inception date.
''It was only to his credit that we knew anything about it.''
It was first decided to form the club in November 1862, with about 50 members from Clyde and Earnscleugh, but the first game was not played until October 2, 1863.
A match report on the game said the opponents, Alexandra, ''committed the grave error'' of providing the Dunstan team with lunch and were ''too enthusiastic in drinking [to] their opponents' health and prosperity ... in one case the ball became quite invisible to one gentleman, several runs scored against them in consequence''.
Needless to say, Clyde won despite Alexandra being the favourites.
Mr Gibson said because of the rather short notice about the almost unexpected anniversary, celebrations were a relaxed affair.
About 60 past and present members, some in town for other events such as the Clyde Primary School 150th and the Clyde Bowling Club 100th, gathered at the town's recreation reserve for a friendly 12-a-side twenty20 match and a barbecue yesterday.
The match, between ''the old schoolers'' and ''the young schoolers'' involved ''quite a lot of cheating'' and was a tie with each team scoring 171 runs, club president Roger Hill said.
