LEAPING OFF THE PAGE....

One of the books I acquired recently was `The Judge,` the autobiography of Robin Smith one of the very best batsmen for Hampshire and England especially against hostile fast bowling.   I read most of it during quiet times on holiday in Padstow last week but it was only today that I finished reading it.

It is perhaps one of the most `challenging` of autobiographies in that, while it recounts his distinguished cricketing career, it is also a very candid and at times distressing account of the challenges he faced with himself once his cricket career came to an end.   Sufficient to say that he went from the fame and adulation of being a sporting super star to becoming a deeply troubled, almost suicidal shadow of his former self.   Thankfully with the help and support of family and friends both inside and outside the game he managed to reinvent himself into a happy, contented and much loved man.

As a piece of literature it has its flaws - too many unnecessary expletives for my liking - and perhaps it drifts a little too much into sentimentality but for all that it is an honest reflection of the man himself and unsurprising that it is a contender for the Sports Book of the Year award.   In many ways it is reminiscent of the books by Graeme Fowler and Marcus Trescothick who also found cricketing life so difficult and it reminded me too of a book I have in my eclectic collection which recounts the extraordinary number of cricketers who have taken their own lives - it`s called `Silence of the Heart`by David Frith and explains, as Robin Smith discovered, that the life and world of a professional cricketer is so all consuming that the adjustment to life beyond the boundary can be so difficult.

Now on a personal note, something leapt out of page 298 at me.  Last year the chairman of Hampshire County Cricket Club, Rod Bransgrove, organised a Captains` Dinner for the eve of the India Test Match to be played at Hampshire`s Ageas Bowl ground and along with the county`s other eleven living captains Robin and his partner were of course invited.   By then Robin had long been settled in Perth in Western Australia and after a little persuasion he accepted the invitation.

On landing at Heathrow the book says, "When we arrived Patrick`s chauffeur Ian, who I had met years ago, was waiting to drive us to Hampshire........."  One of Hampshire cricket`s very generous supporters was Patrick Trant, who owned a thriving engineering company and Ian was his chauffeur among other roles.

Some years ago now, I had a season ticket at Southampton`s St. Mary`s Stadium and I sat next to Ian, so it was the albeit fleeting reference to Ian that leapt out of the page at me.   Now as a claim to fame it might not amount to much and of itself is hardly a recommendation for a book which deserves to be read with sympathy and understanding that life for the famous and talented is often more challenging than for the likes of Ian and me.