Thursday, 18 September 2025 saw Glamorgan clinch promotion into Division One of the Rothesay County Championship for 2026 as they claimed sufficient bonus points in their rain-affected draw against third-placed Derbyshire to give them a large enough cushion ahead of Middlesex and Gloucestershire, who were below them in fourth and fifth place in the table. As such, none of the chasing pack could therefore leapfrog above the Welsh county during the final round of matches staged in the final week of September.
Glamorgan had gone into the game at Derby needing to prevent the home side from winning the contest and hoping that Middlesex and Gloucestershire also failed to win. The significant loss of playing time at Derby – more than in all of the Welsh county’s previous twelve games in 2025 – and the resultant draw against Derbyshire, plus the matches involving Middlesex ending in a draw and Gloucestershire failing to collect sufficient batting or bowling points in their victory over Northants at Bristol, all meant that Glamorgan secured the second, and highly coveted promotion spot and will play in 2026 in the top tier of the premier first-class competition for the first time since 18 September 2005 when the Glamorgan side, then led by Robert Croft, were beaten by Hampshire at Sophia Gardens by 75 runs – one of fourteen defeats from their sixteen matches that summer.
Since 2005, the Welsh county have played 284 matches in Division Two of the County Championship, winning 61, tying a dramatic contest with Gloucestershire at Cheltenham in 2024, besides drawing 124 games and losing a further 98 contests. During this period, Glamorgan’s best position in the Division Two table had previously been third place, which they achieved in 2010, despite having gone into the final match of the season, against Derbyshire at Cardiff, in second place in the table.
Journalists had dubbed the final day of the contest on 16 September, 2010 as the Club’s day of destiny, but it turned into a day of despair as the Welsh county, who were pipped at the post on the final afternoon by Worcestershire, a side who Glamorgan had comprehensively defeated both at home and away in their tally of seven wins – ironically, the same number of victories as Nottinghamshire, the winners of Division One. But at New Road, Worcestershire completed an unexpected run-chase against top of the table Sussex. Thankfully, there were no such dramas or dramatic points deductions during the final contest of the 2025 season as Glamorgan signed off their time in Division Two by losing to Lancashire by seven wickets at Sophia Gardens.