Britain in 1926 was a troubled country. Revolution was in the air as the catastrophic after-effects of the First World War continued. A General Strike in May soon ended, but it left a legacy of bitterness and recrimination. Millions of workers across many industries were sacked or locked out, and coal mining came to a standstill. Poverty was ......
He is one of the few English players with a first-class average of 40 or more not to have won a Test cap. But for a ruptured Achilles, he was told he would have been called up against West Indies in 1995. After retiring as a player aged 36, he forged a successful career as an international coach, with stints in a variety of countries including ......
What - you may ask is the point of an English perspective on French sport? In David Owen's own words, "you might just as well seek out a sea otter's take on kabuki". Nevertheless, having lived upwards of ten per cent of his life in France, and a lot more than that immersed in French grammar, current affairs and culture, he offers exactly that in ......
With a burgeoning reputation as one of the fastest bowlers in the land, Ellcock's hopes of playing Test cricket for England were cruelly thwarted by injury. Plunged into depression and forced to pursue another career, a childhood interest in aviation was to be his salvation. Ellcock relocated to the USA and qualified as a commercial airline pilot, ......
When the first lockdown came, finding himself without cricket for the first time in his life, Geoffrey Boycott sat down and began to write a retrospective warts-and-all diary of each of his Test match appearances.
Renowned cricket writer Scyld Berry has earned a living being paid to avoid the English winter and to visit warm countries to watch cricket. For those who have not been fortunate enough to visit the countries England have toured, and for those who never will, Berry has distilled the essence of each country and its cricket.
Blood on the Tracks tells the thrilling and brutal story of the 1974/75 Ashes series. As the 1975 edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack put it, “Never in the ninety-eight years of Test cricket have batsmen been so grievously bruised and battered by ferocious, hostile short-pitched balls as were those led conscientiously by Mike Denness.
An attacking and often thrilling batter who amassed more than 17,000 runs and18 centuries in professional cricket, he will forever be remembered as a cricketing trailblazer but this new book is about much more than his most famous achievement. As Butcher himself puts it, "More than just a story of cricket, Breaking Barriers is an exploration of ......