Club cricket books are a speciality of mine, having read loads and as an author of several myself. I’ve happily discovered plenty of choice, humour, insight and history in the grassroots game.
Welcome to our corner of the Cricket Yorkshire website dedicated to club cricket books. The idea is to offer reviews and showcase some titles we recommend.
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My first club cricket book, All Wickets Great and Small, is part-travelogue, part commentary of recreational cricket in Yorkshire.
It’s a relaxed read, champions the people and places I visit and you’ll discover a lot about the game you didn’t know.
Published in 2016, it also serves as a nod to the changing landscape as there will be clubs and leagues featured that no longer exist.
If you like Cricket Yorkshire but haven’t read my books before, All Wickets is an excellent starting point (you can quote me on that 😁).
Herding Cats picks its way through the minefield of an amateur’s season: from the excitement and hope of pre-season nets, to the desperate scramble to gather 11 players for a frosty game on a far-flung, desolate pitch.
From decoding the casual phrase ‘I bat a bit’, to setting a field of players who can’t catch or throw; from handling the most delicate egos, to dealing with a case of the yips; from frequent moments of despair, to sudden and joyful glimpses of unexpected glory.
For all those of us who recognise ourselves, our teammates, our friends and partners in the shambling joy of amateur cricket more than in the top-class international game, Campbell lights a path through a weekend world of play at the beating heart of the world’s second most popular sport.
🗣️ JF Verdict: This book licks along, very relatable and funny; Campbell tackles all those comedic, problematic and frustrating riddles that cricket captains negotiate.
If you’ve ever led a cricket team (or just enjoy reading about the rollercoaster) then this is for you.
The golden age of this type of story has now passed. The reasons are obvious. Chief among them is the earning power of top players, both from central contracts and on the franchise Twenty20 circuit, as well as the fact that international and franchise schedules increasingly impinge upon the UK summer.
These stories are not entirely obsolete, however, although they will most often involve players taking their first steps on the road to superstardom, future stars before they became household names. Then there are players in the twilight of their careers, if not former stars then certainly with their highest peaks behind them.
***
🗣️ JF Verdict: Sticky Dogs and Stardust is all about when current, past or future superstars play in club cricket. Scott knits together compelling tales and interviews cleverly. You end up learning about players, clubs and leagues across the country.
Packed with stellar names from the professional game who have played at grassroots, it’s a cracking read, well-researched and full of surprises.
It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of eleven men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe.
Except – hold on a minute – that’s not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, amorous Argentine Colonels’ wives, cunning Bajan drug dealers, gay Australian waiters, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiot Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and whole armies of pitch-invading Antarctic penguins, you quickly arrive at a whole lot more than you bargained for.
Harry Thompson’s hilarious book tells the story of one of those great idiotic enterprises that only an Englishman could have dreamed up, and only a bunch of Englishmen could possibly have wished to carry out.
***
🗣️ JF Verdict:
I’ve read Penguins Stopped Play a few times and it encouraged my own travel writing. Very funny, well-observed and you get to travel around the world, it’s a book that never gets old.
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