A TURN OF THE PAGE....
I`m a lucky man. Well some people might describe me as more sad than lucky but they will be the ones who do not share my lifelong passion for cricket I suppose it all began in 1949 when my parents took me to see the New Zealand touring team play Hampshire at the old Northlands Road ground in Southampton. It was a case of love at first sight and one which, if anything, has grown stronger as the years have gone by.
In the latter stages of my schooldays I found myself appointed as captain of the school cricket eleven - with mixed results - and it was about that time that I started to play for two local village teams - one on Saturdays and the other on Sundays. And to my astonishment and bewilderment the Sunday team asked me to be their captain for a couple of magical seasons before I was swept up into the Army to do my National Service.
Apart from the odd guest appearance, that was the end of my playing career - the vagaries of military life, followed by husbandhood and parenthood, along with the time cricket matches take, meant that I was lost to the game. But the game was never lost to me and I started to acquire books about cricket - the odd Wisden Almanac and Benny Green`s Anthologies - since when my collection has continued to fill my bookshelves.
Over the years I have bought and treasured books about cricketing heroes such as Harold Gimblett, Harold Larwood and Sir Jack Hobbs, books about Hampshire Cricket Club, Glamorgan, Somerset and I have revelled in the writing of those such as John Arlott, Neville Cardus, David Frith, David Foot, Duncan Hamilton and the incomparable Patrick Collins for whom a day at Canterbury to witness the ladies hat competition at tea time whilst cossetted within the sanctuary that is the St. Lawrence Ground was an abiding memory.
You see, for me at least, the thing that makes cricket writing so admirable is that it is proper writing. Football may have the occasional worthy scribe, such as Hugh McIlvanney, but cricket somehow produces a host of writers who have managed to capture the romance and the soul of what is more a way of life than simply a game - and they have done so with literary skill, perception and something approaching reverence which cannot be found in the delusional ramblings of, say, Sam Allardyce or Harry Redknapp. The cricket writers can write - that`s the difference.
Now, for my 80th birthday a few weeks ago I was give book tokens by generous friends and neighbours and for which I am seriously grateful for it has allowed me to add yet more to my cricket library into which I will dip as the world outside the hallowed game grows less and less appealing and the need to get away from it all becomes more and more compelling.
And thanks to that generosity I have now acquired `The Judge` - the autobiography of Robin Smith, one of Hampshire and England`s finest batsmen and former resident of Nomansland in the upper reaches of the New Forest; `The Great Romantic`by Duncan Hamilton which will I am sure capture cricket in the golden age of Neville Cardus; `A Cricketing Miscellany` by Marcus Berkmann and, for good measure, Duncan Hamilton`s `Going to the Match,` which could well bring to football the same insight and intelligence that he has brought to cricket writing over the years.
Told you I was a lucky man.
In the latter stages of my schooldays I found myself appointed as captain of the school cricket eleven - with mixed results - and it was about that time that I started to play for two local village teams - one on Saturdays and the other on Sundays. And to my astonishment and bewilderment the Sunday team asked me to be their captain for a couple of magical seasons before I was swept up into the Army to do my National Service.
Apart from the odd guest appearance, that was the end of my playing career - the vagaries of military life, followed by husbandhood and parenthood, along with the time cricket matches take, meant that I was lost to the game. But the game was never lost to me and I started to acquire books about cricket - the odd Wisden Almanac and Benny Green`s Anthologies - since when my collection has continued to fill my bookshelves.
Over the years I have bought and treasured books about cricketing heroes such as Harold Gimblett, Harold Larwood and Sir Jack Hobbs, books about Hampshire Cricket Club, Glamorgan, Somerset and I have revelled in the writing of those such as John Arlott, Neville Cardus, David Frith, David Foot, Duncan Hamilton and the incomparable Patrick Collins for whom a day at Canterbury to witness the ladies hat competition at tea time whilst cossetted within the sanctuary that is the St. Lawrence Ground was an abiding memory.
You see, for me at least, the thing that makes cricket writing so admirable is that it is proper writing. Football may have the occasional worthy scribe, such as Hugh McIlvanney, but cricket somehow produces a host of writers who have managed to capture the romance and the soul of what is more a way of life than simply a game - and they have done so with literary skill, perception and something approaching reverence which cannot be found in the delusional ramblings of, say, Sam Allardyce or Harry Redknapp. The cricket writers can write - that`s the difference.
Now, for my 80th birthday a few weeks ago I was give book tokens by generous friends and neighbours and for which I am seriously grateful for it has allowed me to add yet more to my cricket library into which I will dip as the world outside the hallowed game grows less and less appealing and the need to get away from it all becomes more and more compelling.
And thanks to that generosity I have now acquired `The Judge` - the autobiography of Robin Smith, one of Hampshire and England`s finest batsmen and former resident of Nomansland in the upper reaches of the New Forest; `The Great Romantic`by Duncan Hamilton which will I am sure capture cricket in the golden age of Neville Cardus; `A Cricketing Miscellany` by Marcus Berkmann and, for good measure, Duncan Hamilton`s `Going to the Match,` which could well bring to football the same insight and intelligence that he has brought to cricket writing over the years.
Told you I was a lucky man.
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