Sussex Cricket Club is to pay honour to ten players and one member of staff cut down in their prime on the battlefields of Europe.

The club will next year honour the eight players and club secretary Francis Oddie killed in the First World War and two players who died in the Second World War.

The players will be honoured with a memorial plaque at the county ground in time to mark 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War.

The club’s vice chairman Jon Filby said the move would rectify the omission not to recognise them in the past.

The roll call has been painstakingly drawn together by historian Roger Packham who has spent many hours trawling newspaper archives.

The club’s war heroes include Lewes-born promising fast bowler Ken Woodroffe who in the club’s last pre-war game took six for 43 at the Oval before being killed in action at Neuve Chapelle in 1915.

His brother Sidney was awarded the Victorian Cross for his bravery in Belgium in the same year.

Also commemorated will be Ernest Relf who was one of three Relf brothers who played together for Sussex prior to the war.

Ernest was killed but brother Albert went on to play more than 500 times for the county as well as 13 tests for England as he established a reputation for being one of the finest all-rounders of his generation.

Third brother Robert Relf was also a successful player for the county, scoring three double centuries during his time with the club.

There is surviving film footage of wicketkeeper Arthur Lang playing for the county at the Horsham cricket weekend in 1913 showing him coming down the pavilion steps.

Within a couple of years of the film being taken, he was killed in action in France.

Jack Nason made a big impression on debut as a 17-year-old scoring 53 not out. He was killed ten years later in Belgium.

The club will also publish a booklet to mark the occasion, similar to those produced to mark the 50th anniversary of the Gillette Cup victory and the passing of former captain Tony Greig.

The plaque will be funded by the club’s charity at a cost of about £2,000.

Mr Filby said: “It’s an omission that we are rectifying now. I suppose after the war money was tight but we really don’t know why a memorial was never made before.

“It’s quite horrifying that as many as nine players were lost in the Great War.”

Cricket historian Roger Packham said: “There were nine who were killed in the First World War but there were others who were badly injured or had hair-raising experiences who won’t be on the memorial but who will be in the book.

“I have gone through minute books and can’t find any discussion of a memorial. It’s possible there was one and as with these things, it got old or broken and was cleared away.”