Author: Christopher Sandford
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750961988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253
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Book Description
August 1914 brought an end to the ‘Golden Age’ of English cricket. At least 210 professional cricketers (out of a total of 278 registered) signed up to fight, of whom thirty-four were killed. However, that period and those men were far more than merely statistics: here we follow in intimate detail not only the cricketers of that fateful last summer before the war, but also the simple pleasures and daily struggles of their family lives and the whole fabric of English social life as it existed on the eve of that cataclysm: the First World War. With unprecedented access to personal and war diaries, and other papers, Sandford expertly recounts the stories of such greats as Hon. Lionel Tennyson, as he moves virtually overnight from the round of Chelsea and Mayfair parties into the front line at the Marne; the violin-playing bowler Colin Blythe, who asked to be moved up to a front-line unit at Passchendaele, following the death in action of his brother, with tragic consequences; and the widely popular Hampshire amateur player Robert Jesson, whose sometimes comic, frequently horrific and always enthralling experiences of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign are vividly brought to life. The Final Over is undoubtedly a gripping, moving and fully human account of this most poignant summer of the twentieth century, both on and off the field of play.
Author: David Frith
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1780573936
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
Cricket has an alarming suicide rate. Among international players for England and several other countries it is far above the national average for all sports: and there have been numerous instances at other levels of the game. For thirty years, celebrated cricket author David Frith has collected data on this sad subject. Silence of the Heart is his compelling account of over a hundred cricketers - involving top names from the past hundred years - who have taken their own lives, with an explanation of factors that led to their premature deaths. Can the shocking rate of self-destruction among cricketers be reduced? Can those who run the game do something to save its participants from this dreadful fate? These are among the questions addressed within this catalogue of biographies. But the key question is whether cricket itself is to blame for its losses - or is that this summer game attracts people of a melancholic and over-sensitive nature? Stoddart, Shrewsbury, Gimblett, Bairstow, Trott, Iverson, Robertson-Glasgow, Barnes . . . There remains a sense of disbelief that these high-profile cricketers killed themselves. And many more cases are examined in this extraordinary book, which comes crammed with detail, is not devoid of humour, and must rank among the most intricately researched volumes in cricket's extensive library. With a foreword by former England captain Mike Brearley, now a psychotherapist, Silence of the Heart is a startling investigative narrative covering the phenomenon of cricket's unduly high level of suicide.
Author: Tony Collins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136317732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
Since it’s first publication, Rugby’s Great Split has established itself as a classic in the field of sport history. Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources, this deeply researched and highly readable book traces the social, cultural and economic divisions that led, in 1895, to schism in the game of rugby and the creation of rugby league, the sport of England’s northern working class. Tony Collins’ analysis challenges many of the conventional assumptions about this key event in rugby history – about class conflict, amateurism in sport, the North-South divide, violence on the pitch, the development of mass spectator sport and the rise of football. This new edition is expanded to cover parallel events in Australia and New Zealand, and to address the key question of rugby league’s failure to establish itself in Wales. Rugby’s Great Split is a benchmark text in the history of rugby, and an absorbing case study of wider issues – issues of class, gender, regional and national identity, and the impact of the commercialization and recent professionalization of rugby league. This insightful text is for anyone interested in Britain’s social history or in the emergence of modern sport, it is vital reading.
Author: Huw Richards
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1780573286
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Rugby union has undergone immense change in the past two decades - introducing a World Cup, accepting professionalism and creating a global market in players - yet no authoritative English-language general history of the game has been published in that time. Until now. A Game for Hooligans brings the game's colourful story up to date to include the 2007 World Cup. It covers all of the great matches, teams and players but also explores the social, political and economic changes that have affected the course of rugby's development. It is an international history, covering not only Britain and France but also the great rugby powers of the southern hemisphere and other successful rugby nations, including Argentina, Fiji and Japan. Contained within are the answers to many intriguing questions concerning the game, such as why 1895 is the most important date in both rugby-union and rugby-league history and how New Zealand became so good and have remained so good for so long. There is also a wealth of anecdotes, including allegations of devil-worship at a Welsh rugby club and an account of the game's contribution to the Cuban Revolution. This is a must-read for any fan of the oval ball.
Author: Huw Richards
Publisher: Aurum
ISBN: 178131358X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
In every Five Nations D and now Six Nations Ð season the real showdown is always that between England and Wales: Wales with its history of playing the finest rugby of all the home nations, England with its enviable strength in depth and forward muscle. Whether in the vast bowl of Twickenham or the cauldron of the Millennium Stadium every year is a sell-out long in advance. Over the years there have been innumerable epic encounters. In the seventies Wales dominated with Barry John, Gareth Edwards at scrum-half and JPR Williams at full back, but England had the blistering running of David Duckham with his blond hair flying. The eighties and nineties saw some incendiary encounters with Paul Ringer and Wade Dooley both involved in high-profile punch-ups, but also England re-establishing dominance and Bill Beaumont and then Will Carling. But the decade ended at Wembley with Scott GibbsÕs dramatic last-minute swallow-dive to snatch victory for Wales. More recently Wales have come back with new stars like Gavin Henson and Shane Williams after years of powerhouse England forward play had held sway. Huw Richards has talked to many veterans of these matches, as well as to present players and administrators to tells the whole history of Wales v England at rugby: a contest that is a clash of cultures and histories as well as a titanic sporting occasion. Huw Richards is rugby correspondent of the Financial Times.
Author: Phil McGowan
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445651033
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 237
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Book Description
From seminal England players like Fred Stokes, loose-head prop in the first ever international rugby match in 1871, to the likes of Lawrence Dallaglio, Johnny Wilkinson and Martin Johnson, key players in the winning 2003 World Cup Squad, Phil McGowan introduces you to the players that forged England’s sporting history.
Author: Simon Heffer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643136712
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 912
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Book Description
A richly detailed history of Britain at its imperial zenith, revealing the simmering tensions and explosive rivalries beneath the opulent surface of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The popular memory of Britain in the years before the Great War is of a powerful, contented, orderly, and thriving country. Britain commanded a vast empire: she bestrode international commerce. Her citizens were living longer, profiting from civil liberties their grandparents only dreamed of and enjoying an expanding range of comforts and pastimes. The mood of pride and self-confidence can be seen in Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches, newsreels of George V’s coronation, and London’s great Edwardian palaces. Yet beneath the surface things were very different In The Age of Decadence, Simon Heffer exposes the contradictions of late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. He explains how, despite the nation’s massive power, a mismanaged war against the Boers in South Africa created profound doubts about her imperial destiny. He shows how attempts to secure vital social reforms prompted the twentieth century’s gravest constitutional crisis—and coincided with the worst industrial unrest in British history. He describes how politicians who conceded the vote to millions more men disregarded women so utterly that female suffragists’ public protest bordered on terrorism. He depicts a ruling class that fell prey to degeneracy and scandal. He analyses a national psyche that embraced the motor-car, the sensationalist press, and the science fiction of H. G. Wells, but also the nostalgia of A. E. Housman.
Author: Paul Donnelley
Publisher: Hamlyn
ISBN: 0600622533
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
200 brilliant and bizarre curiosities highlighting the First, Last and Onlys that have occurred during the illustrious history of this sport - from the determined cricketers fined for playing on the Sabbath to the only virtuoso to score a century and take all ten wickets in a single innings. This absorbing collection of stories is guaranteed to enthral and includes some of the greatest gentleman to have graced the field of play, such as: The first player to bat on all 5 days of a test match. The last incidence of under-armed bowling in an international match. The only father and son to score centuries in the same First Class innings.Delight in a myriad of facts that you never knew about this glorious game.
Author: David Frith
Publisher: Aurum
ISBN: 1781311935
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 619
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Book Description
In 1932, England’s cricket team, led by the haughty Douglas Jardine, had the fastest bowler in the world: Harold Larwood. Australia boasted the most prolific batsman the game had ever seen: the young Don Bradman. He had to be stopped. The leg-side bouncer onslaught inflicted by Larwood and Bill Voce, with a ring of fieldsmen waiting for catches, caused an outrage that reverberated to the back of the stands and into the highest levels of government. Bodyline, as this infamous technique came to be known, was repugnant to the majority of cricket-lovers. It was also potentially lethal – one bowl fracturing the skull of Australian wicketkeeper Bert Oldfield – and the technique was outlawed in 1934. After the death of Don Bradman in 2001, one of the most controversial events in cricketing history – the Bodyline technique - finally slid out of living memory. Over seventy years on, the 1932-33 Ashes series remains the most notorious in the history of Test cricket between Australia and England. David Frith’s gripping narrative has been acclaimed as the definitive book on the whole saga: superbly researched and replete with anecdotes, Bodyline Autopsy is a masterly anatomy of one of the most remarkable sporting scandals.
Author: John Lazenby
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 1473617928
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
John Lazenby's interest in cricket began with a glimpse of his grandfather's old leather cricket bag stored among the rafters. His curiosity piqued, one day he decided to climb up and explore its contents. The faded blazer, heavy ball and linseed-scented bats exerted a subtle influence on him. This re-emerged decades later when he discovered a box of letters written by his grandfather, the England cricketer J. R. Mason, while on a boat to Australia for the 1897-8 Ashes tour. Inspired by these extraordinary letters, John Lazenby retraces the journey. His tour becomes a cricketing pilgrimage and a voyage of discovery as he passes through Australian cities and remote towns his grandfather visited more than a hundred years ago. During his travels he uncovers a wealth of memorabilia and anecdotes, and his wide-reaching narrative encompasses not only Mason and his team-mates, but also a wider insight into late Victorian mores.
