season in 1951. The 1950s were dominated by Surrey, who won seven successive championships. Yorkshire had internal problems which were resolved before the 1959 season in which Yorkshire recovered the title under Ronnie Burnet. The 1960s saw a new Yorkshire team emerge that dominated English cricket. Brian Close was made captain in 1963 and won the Championship in his first season. The team included Fred Trueman, all-rounder Ray Illingworth, wicket-keeper Jimmy Binks and Test batsmen Geoffrey Boycott, Doug Padgett, Phil Sharpe and John Hampshire. The team began to break up after winning a third successive title in 1968 and Close was controversially sacked in 1970. 1971–2000 There followed a long-running current of unrest in the club. There was sadness too in 1973 when Bramall Lane, the club's first ever home, was finally closed to cricket after over 400 first-class matches and was converted into a specialist football stadium. Geoff Boycott captained Yorkshire for most of the 1970s, but competitive success eluded the team even when Boycott left Test cricket for three years to concentrate on the county game. He was sacked as captain amid much internal furore after the 1978 season. Ray Illingworth returned from Leicestershire as team manager and, in 1982 at the age of 50, took over the captaincy. Yorkshire finished bottom of the 17-strong County Championship for the first time in 1983 but won the John Player (later National) League for the first time. There was further controversy when Boycott was not offered a new contract. The outcome of this was that the general committee resigned and Boycott, having already been elected to the new committee, was reinstated as a player. Meanwhile, Brian Close became chairman of the cricket committee. Success continued to elude Yorkshire although Phil Carrick led the team to a Benson and Hedges Cup triumph in 1987. Yorkshire put themselves at a self-evident disadvantage from 1968 until 1992 by insisting that all its players must have been born within the historic county boundaries of Yorkshire, while all the other county teams strengthened themselves by signing overseas Test players. In 1992, the birth qualification rule was first modified to include those who had been educated within the county, a dispensation that allowed Michael Vaughan to play; and was then was eventually abandoned altogether. Yorkshire's first ever overseas player that season was 19-year-old Sachin Tendulkar. 2001 to present Yorkshire finally won the County Championship again in