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That Will Be England Gone: The Last Summer of Cricket
That Will Be England Gone is a tour d'horizon of cricket in England from April to September.
'Philip Larkin's line 'that will be England gone' is the premise of this fascinating book which is about music, literature, poetry and architecture as well as cricket. Henderson is that rare bird, a reporter with a fine grasp of time and place, but also a stylist of enviable quality and perception' Michael Parkinson
Neville Cardus once said there could be no summer in England without cricket.
The 2019 season was supposed to be the greatest summer of cricket ever seen in England. There was a World Cup, followed by five Test matches against Australia in the latest engagement of sport's oldest rivalry. It was also the last season of county cricket before the introduction in 2020 of a new tournament, The Hundred, designed to attract an audience of younger people who have no interest in the summer game.
In That Will Be England Gone, Michael Henderson revisits much-loved places to see how the game he grew up with has changed since the day in 1965 that he saw the great fast bowler Fred Trueman in his pomp. He watches schoolboys at Repton, club cricketers at Ramsbottom, and professionals on the festival grounds of Chesterfield, Cheltenham and Scarborough. The rolling English road takes him to Leicester for T20, to Lord's for the most ceremonial Test match, and to Taunton to watch an old cricketer leave the crease for the last time. He is enchanted at Trent Bridge, surprised at the Oval, and troubled at Old Trafford.
'Cricket,' Henderson says, 'has always been part of my other life.' There are memories of friendships with Ken Dodd, Harold Pinter and Simon Rattle, and the book is coloured throughout by a love of landscape, poetry, paintings and music. As well as reflections on his childhood hero, Farokh Engineer, and other great players, there are digressions on subjects as various as Lancashire comedians, Viennese melancholy and the films of Michael Powell.
Lyrical and elegiac, That Will Be England Gone is a deeply personal tribute to cricket, summer and England.
'Admirers of Neville Cardus and A. E. Housman will warm to Michael Henderson's elegy for an ideal England. A rich roast dinner of cricket, music, topography, nostalgia and anecdote, washed down with prose as smooth and satisfying as a pint of Otter Ale' Sebastian Faulks
'Philip Larkin's line 'that will be England gone' is the premise of this fascinating book which is about music, literature, poetry and architecture as well as cricket. Henderson is that rare bird, a reporter with a fine grasp of time and place, but also a stylist of enviable quality and perception' Michael Parkinson
Neville Cardus once said there could be no summer in England without cricket.
The 2019 season was supposed to be the greatest summer of cricket ever seen in England. There was a World Cup, followed by five Test matches against Australia in the latest engagement of sport's oldest rivalry. It was also the last season of county cricket before the introduction in 2020 of a new tournament, The Hundred, designed to attract an audience of younger people who have no interest in the summer game.
In That Will Be England Gone, Michael Henderson revisits much-loved places to see how the game he grew up with has changed since the day in 1965 that he saw the great fast bowler Fred Trueman in his pomp. He watches schoolboys at Repton, club cricketers at Ramsbottom, and professionals on the festival grounds of Chesterfield, Cheltenham and Scarborough. The rolling English road takes him to Leicester for T20, to Lord's for the most ceremonial Test match, and to Taunton to watch an old cricketer leave the crease for the last time. He is enchanted at Trent Bridge, surprised at the Oval, and troubled at Old Trafford.
'Cricket,' Henderson says, 'has always been part of my other life.' There are memories of friendships with Ken Dodd, Harold Pinter and Simon Rattle, and the book is coloured throughout by a love of landscape, poetry, paintings and music. As well as reflections on his childhood hero, Farokh Engineer, and other great players, there are digressions on subjects as various as Lancashire comedians, Viennese melancholy and the films of Michael Powell.
Lyrical and elegiac, That Will Be England Gone is a deeply personal tribute to cricket, summer and England.
'Admirers of Neville Cardus and A. E. Housman will warm to Michael Henderson's elegy for an ideal England. A rich roast dinner of cricket, music, topography, nostalgia and anecdote, washed down with prose as smooth and satisfying as a pint of Otter Ale' Sebastian Faulks
- GenresNonfictionSports
296 pages, Hardcover
First published April 30, 2020
About the author
Michael Henderson
101 books12 followersYou'll find my bio on my website at www.michaelhenderson.org.uk
My new book has been reviewed in Publishers Weekly. See below:
Review of NO ENEMY TO CONQUER, in Publishers Weekly Dec 15, 2008
No Enemy to Conquer: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World Michael Henderson, foreword by the Dalai Lama. Baylor Univ., $19.95 paper (234p) ISBN-978-1-60258-140-1
Henderson (From India with Hope), whose Irish Protestant family sought reconciliation with their Catholic compatriots, may be just the sort of eloquent messenger the world needs to understand the utility and not just the symbolic value of forgiveness. Starting with the Dalai Lama’s foreword—a paean to the power of redemption—this book is a blissful read and a persuasive argument for forgiveness as a practical tool for global survival. As the author demonstrates in a discussion of (the few) American individuals and institutions that have made formal apologies for the African slave trade, history cannot be redeemed with an apology, but an apology can create a new starting point for history. Most instructive, however, are the stories of people, from Chechnya to Pennsylvania Amish country, who have suffered unspeakable acts at the hands of enemies and staunchly refuse to be consumed by victimhood. Henderson shows the real muscle behind forgiveness, avoiding preciousness and sentimentality. He writes, “Forgiveness has an image problem”—with this latest effort, perhaps no more. (Feb.)
My new book has been reviewed in Publishers Weekly. See below:
Review of NO ENEMY TO CONQUER, in Publishers Weekly Dec 15, 2008
No Enemy to Conquer: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World Michael Henderson, foreword by the Dalai Lama. Baylor Univ., $19.95 paper (234p) ISBN-978-1-60258-140-1
Henderson (From India with Hope), whose Irish Protestant family sought reconciliation with their Catholic compatriots, may be just the sort of eloquent messenger the world needs to understand the utility and not just the symbolic value of forgiveness. Starting with the Dalai Lama’s foreword—a paean to the power of redemption—this book is a blissful read and a persuasive argument for forgiveness as a practical tool for global survival. As the author demonstrates in a discussion of (the few) American individuals and institutions that have made formal apologies for the African slave trade, history cannot be redeemed with an apology, but an apology can create a new starting point for history. Most instructive, however, are the stories of people, from Chechnya to Pennsylvania Amish country, who have suffered unspeakable acts at the hands of enemies and staunchly refuse to be consumed by victimhood. Henderson shows the real muscle behind forgiveness, avoiding preciousness and sentimentality. He writes, “Forgiveness has an image problem”—with this latest effort, perhaps no more. (Feb.)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
August 16, 2021
I bought this book in a nostalgic mood because, because of COVID I haven't been able to travel to see my family in England in 2 years. I grew up playing rural village cricket and I'd been led to believe it contained ideas about supporting the grass-roots game with comments about exciting World Cup summer of 2019.
I found it insufferable; like spending hours trapped in a pub with an old curmudgeon who lazily fishes his opinions out of the Daily Telegraph.
I'll give you an example. He is enraged by young cricketers wearing baseball caps instead of baggy caps and daring to wear them with the peak pointing backwards. "Why do cricketers wear hats back to front?... It's like getting a tattoo. The impressionable young can feel very lonely if they are not seen to fit in." These young people do other terrible things like "drinking lager" eating avocado & changing club. It seems the worst thing about them is that they are under the age of 50. You wonder if he has every tried talking to any members of this strange species "young people" before forming his opinions. I suspect not.
There are other Telegraphian rants; radio is too loud nowadays, players born in South Africa can't possibly be English. The only time Michael Henderson seems happy is when he goes to his old school, the expensive private school Repton. "The facilities here, running to 15 pitches and excellent nets, are superior to anything found in the state section." Well yes, since Repton's home page explains fees are "Boarding pupils: £12,721 per term. Day pupils: £9,437 per term." so that is hardly surprising.
I was half expecting some nostalgia for the era of corporal punishment but was, thankfully, for once surprised.
I wouldn't mind all these predictable moans and groans if Henderson wasn't so unbearably pompous. He goes on a tour of the most touristy locations of the city where I live Vienna and announces "The Imperial City is mine because I have created it in my image."
By the time this happens, I imagine him drooling at the bar of the Old Swann Inn and I am the barman gently offering to call him a taxi. If this is the England that will be gone, I won't mourn it.
I found it insufferable; like spending hours trapped in a pub with an old curmudgeon who lazily fishes his opinions out of the Daily Telegraph.
I'll give you an example. He is enraged by young cricketers wearing baseball caps instead of baggy caps and daring to wear them with the peak pointing backwards. "Why do cricketers wear hats back to front?... It's like getting a tattoo. The impressionable young can feel very lonely if they are not seen to fit in." These young people do other terrible things like "drinking lager" eating avocado & changing club. It seems the worst thing about them is that they are under the age of 50. You wonder if he has every tried talking to any members of this strange species "young people" before forming his opinions. I suspect not.
There are other Telegraphian rants; radio is too loud nowadays, players born in South Africa can't possibly be English. The only time Michael Henderson seems happy is when he goes to his old school, the expensive private school Repton. "The facilities here, running to 15 pitches and excellent nets, are superior to anything found in the state section." Well yes, since Repton's home page explains fees are "Boarding pupils: £12,721 per term. Day pupils: £9,437 per term." so that is hardly surprising.
I was half expecting some nostalgia for the era of corporal punishment but was, thankfully, for once surprised.
I wouldn't mind all these predictable moans and groans if Henderson wasn't so unbearably pompous. He goes on a tour of the most touristy locations of the city where I live Vienna and announces "The Imperial City is mine because I have created it in my image."
By the time this happens, I imagine him drooling at the bar of the Old Swann Inn and I am the barman gently offering to call him a taxi. If this is the England that will be gone, I won't mourn it.
July 18, 2021
A hateful book. Cricketers aren’t what they used to be, the young are the generation of instant gratification and everything is terrible about any attempt to grow the game’s audience. Hate came from every page and as a twenty eight year old who watches a local team every weekend I felt much of it was towards me and my generation and by the end a similar hate had arose for him.
July 25, 2020
Taking it's title from Philip Larkin's 'Going Gone' poem with this book is a lament for a lost England told through cricket. The fear is that this could be some Farage light lament for a loss of empire, some rose tinted nostalgia about the war and some diatribe about Europe. There are times when you feel Henderson delves too close to this for comfort and yet he pulls it back.
Henderson is no Farage though, he is instead an erudite lover of Europe, of opera, of poetry, of classical music, of literature and of art. He's going to let you know it as well. He meets with the great and the good of all these fields and shamelessly name drops from Karajan and Pinter to Willis and Dodd. He has what is now considered in too many places to be an old fashioned view of the world, what may be considered to be a high-brow even snobbish view and certainly a small c conservative view, a view that values art and education highly.
He is no lover of the modern world and the book stems from his opinion that the introduction of The Hundred this year (now next thanks to COVID) meant that last year was the final year of cricket as we know it and with it England would be gone. This makes it the last chance to visit the homes of cricket and the places that have shaped his love of the game whilst musing on it past and future.
It's a fascinating journey taking in biography, musings on the game and on culture and feels like someone looking back on their life with few regrets bit with little optimism for the future.
It certainly won't be to everyone's taste and some will see it as reactionary, elitist and snobbish. I have to say I enjoyed it and I'm glad he didn't try and dumb down.
He's also right about The Hundred
Henderson is no Farage though, he is instead an erudite lover of Europe, of opera, of poetry, of classical music, of literature and of art. He's going to let you know it as well. He meets with the great and the good of all these fields and shamelessly name drops from Karajan and Pinter to Willis and Dodd. He has what is now considered in too many places to be an old fashioned view of the world, what may be considered to be a high-brow even snobbish view and certainly a small c conservative view, a view that values art and education highly.
He is no lover of the modern world and the book stems from his opinion that the introduction of The Hundred this year (now next thanks to COVID) meant that last year was the final year of cricket as we know it and with it England would be gone. This makes it the last chance to visit the homes of cricket and the places that have shaped his love of the game whilst musing on it past and future.
It's a fascinating journey taking in biography, musings on the game and on culture and feels like someone looking back on their life with few regrets bit with little optimism for the future.
It certainly won't be to everyone's taste and some will see it as reactionary, elitist and snobbish. I have to say I enjoyed it and I'm glad he didn't try and dumb down.
He's also right about The Hundred
July 12, 2020
Nostalgic name dropping
A book for the connoisseur, who doesn't mind name dropping or meandering prose. I found it an effort to read, as I had to reach for the dictionary every five minutes. The author obviously dislikes all the recent innovations in cricket, but he is too pessimistic and one-sided in his outlook.
A book for the connoisseur, who doesn't mind name dropping or meandering prose. I found it an effort to read, as I had to reach for the dictionary every five minutes. The author obviously dislikes all the recent innovations in cricket, but he is too pessimistic and one-sided in his outlook.
Read
May 29, 2021It reads like a parody of Jacob Rees Mogg, or the TV character Frazier Crane.
July 18, 2021
Awful. A non stop flood of the writer’s snobbery and bile against anything faintly modern.
December 7, 2020
Sadly, I think that this is an opportunity missed. Michael Henderson is a well-respected, erudite writer who has been privileged to share his love of cricket with some significant characters from the world of theatre, music and the media - and lets us know it.
The perspective of watching cricket from a box at Lord’s or surrounded by the great and the good whilst harking back to memories of some of the greatest cricketers of the past 50 years is interesting and occasionally enjoyable but such nostalgia, when combined with his pessimism for cricket’s future, is hardly constructive. His polemic may be shared by many but we can all rue the good old days and the loss of those things of our youth that we all held so dear but what of the future?
I am no fan of concept of The Hundred but recognise that cricket needs to do something to keep the populace engaged and the game alive for future generations to enjoy. Henderson explores some interesting - but hardly original - aspects of the game, including the working class grafters (the likes of Truman, Boycott and, arguably, Anderson) versus the public school elite and English crickets attempts at diversity, but if 2019 genuinely was the Last Summer of Cricket, I would be interested to have known what his solution to the knotty issue confronting the cricketing establishment would have been.
Whilst I enjoyed much of this book, I did find quite a lot of it self-indulgent and his outlook rather eeyore-ish. I am of the same generation. I cut my teeth watching John Edrich, Mickey Stewart and Geoff Arnold at The Oval and Guildford and John Player League games at Weybridge. But those days are gone and how we watch sport, even how we spend our leisure time, has changed along with wider society. T20 too was derided initially - Henderson still hates the razzmatazz surrounding it - but no-one can deny the way it has reinvigorated grass roots cricket, brought in huge audiences and has subsidised other, less eye-catching formats.
We can all be misty-eyed about the past but if not The Hundred, how would Michael Henderson - with all his wisdom, knowledge and experience - have attempted to reinvigorate the game we love?
I can respect the quality of the writing and may share the enjoyment of recognising his glimpses of times gone by but what of the future?
The perspective of watching cricket from a box at Lord’s or surrounded by the great and the good whilst harking back to memories of some of the greatest cricketers of the past 50 years is interesting and occasionally enjoyable but such nostalgia, when combined with his pessimism for cricket’s future, is hardly constructive. His polemic may be shared by many but we can all rue the good old days and the loss of those things of our youth that we all held so dear but what of the future?
I am no fan of concept of The Hundred but recognise that cricket needs to do something to keep the populace engaged and the game alive for future generations to enjoy. Henderson explores some interesting - but hardly original - aspects of the game, including the working class grafters (the likes of Truman, Boycott and, arguably, Anderson) versus the public school elite and English crickets attempts at diversity, but if 2019 genuinely was the Last Summer of Cricket, I would be interested to have known what his solution to the knotty issue confronting the cricketing establishment would have been.
Whilst I enjoyed much of this book, I did find quite a lot of it self-indulgent and his outlook rather eeyore-ish. I am of the same generation. I cut my teeth watching John Edrich, Mickey Stewart and Geoff Arnold at The Oval and Guildford and John Player League games at Weybridge. But those days are gone and how we watch sport, even how we spend our leisure time, has changed along with wider society. T20 too was derided initially - Henderson still hates the razzmatazz surrounding it - but no-one can deny the way it has reinvigorated grass roots cricket, brought in huge audiences and has subsidised other, less eye-catching formats.
We can all be misty-eyed about the past but if not The Hundred, how would Michael Henderson - with all his wisdom, knowledge and experience - have attempted to reinvigorate the game we love?
I can respect the quality of the writing and may share the enjoyment of recognising his glimpses of times gone by but what of the future?
June 25, 2023
It’s June, it’s an Ashes summer and the Lord’s Test Match is on the horizon, so it must be about time for my annual dip into the rich literature of cricket. In recent years there has been something of a surfeit of books looking back on golden summers of cricket of the past. Those by Duncan Hamilton, in particular I have loved for their evocation of great players, grounds and matches, and a clear-eyed examination of the current health of the game at all levels. That Will be England Gone (the title taken from Philip Larkin’s great poem of looming ecological disaster) follows a similar recipe. Michael Henderson’s view of things is less sympathetic than Hamilton’s and there were moments when his litanies of everything about the country that is going to pot felt like collected readers’ letters to the Daily Telegraph. Yes, The Hundred is awful and it has driven a coach and horses through the County Championship but for cash-strapped counties, what alternative is there? He acknowledges the damage done to the game by the selling off of sports grounds in the Eighties and the absence of coverage on terrestrial television, both of which have turned it onto a game played by the middle classes and whose top players are now almost exclusively turned out by the public schools, it having largely disappeared from the state sector. I’m willing to forgive most of this cultural grandstanding though, for Henderson’s sensitive and often beautiful passages of prose; no more so in his final chapter which looks at the high levels of mental illness among professional cricketers.
July 25, 2020
I picked this book up thinking it would be about cricket in England in 2019 which is not the case. It meanders through a number of subjects including the changing of English society, cricket history, and classical music. If you are knowledgable across all of these areas there are some interesting anecdotes but if not there will be times you are hanging on and struggling to see the point. It was an easy read, but it’s not clear to me what it was meant to be about.
March 19, 2022
Not enough cricket, too much polemic. Comes across as rather curmudgeonly - nothing is as good as it was. Disappointing.
July 8, 2022
Man complains the world isn't exactly as he would have it. Dripping with snobbery all the way through. Barely even mentions cricket, which is the whole reason I paid out for the damn thing.
May 4, 2021
A lament for a game diminished by greed and modern life. The marketer's and moguls desire that cricket changes to remain relevant in a world of increasing pace and instant gratification..
I didn't agree with all aspects or criticisms made by the author but many did chime. I found myself drawn more to the sections around culture than cricket. The writing and memories made me wistful at times. That's often the beauty of reading a personal viewpoint from a knowledgeable and erudite writer. Glad that I read it.
I didn't agree with all aspects or criticisms made by the author but many did chime. I found myself drawn more to the sections around culture than cricket. The writing and memories made me wistful at times. That's often the beauty of reading a personal viewpoint from a knowledgeable and erudite writer. Glad that I read it.
July 27, 2021
When Denis Healey died, one word that appeared in a lot of the obituaries and tributes was ‘hinterland’, in that context conveying the breadth of his life beyond the contentious world of politics for which he was principally known. Much was made of his interests in literature and music, as well as photography, in which he was especially accomplished, to the extent that he might have made a living from it if he had not succumbed instead to the political life.
In this marvellous book, Michael Henderson, known primarily for his years as cricket correspondent writing in most of the leading newspapers at one time or another, displays his own extensive hinterland. In addition to a cornucopia of glorious cricketing memories, he takes the reader along with him in tangential forays into opera, literature, art and history.
In his regular articles on cricket, Henderson was seldom reluctant to express an opinion, caring little for established conventions if he felt they needed to be challenged. Yet even when I found myself disagreeing with him (which, I now realise, happened far less frequently than I might have expected), I was always impressed with what Sir Humphrey might have termed his ‘refreshing directness’. I could always follow his reasoning, too.
In this book, any residual reluctance to express his views has evaporated entirely, and he bemoans the impact of the relentless search for popularism on the noble game of cricket. It is easy to dismiss naysayers to new forms of cricket simply as knee-jerk reactionaries, opposed to change as a matter of principle. More than most sorts, cricket has a bedrock of Adullamites, constantly looking to a Corinthian past largely of their own imagining, and impervious to any hint of change. I don’t think that Henderson’s dismay falls into that category. He certainly makes no secret of his dislike, even scorn, at the recent trends in cricket, such as the predomination of the T20 format, which has almost driven out the long-established first class county game in England, or, even worse, the hullaballoo surrounding the imminent introduction of ‘The Hundred’ (still some way off in the future at the time Henderson was writing, but now launched). He does, however, offer soundly constructed arguments as to why he believes that these are dangerous developments.
Although a lifelong lover of the game, I am not sufficiently qualified to offer a worthwhile opinion as to whether he is right (although I strongly suspect he is). I can, however, expand on the joy of reading this book. I bought it for his insights and memories about cricket, but cherished it for far more. In between his reminiscences prompted by his last tour of the country as a working cricket correspondent, he weaves rich tapestries about a wealth of other subjects. And what a diverse selection!
In different chapters we are given a whistle-stop tour of the multifarious glories of Vienna; a potted biography of Robert Peel, who as Home Secretary founded the police force, before going on to form the modern Conservative Party; marvellous depictions of most of the great cricket grounds around the country, and a wonderful homage to Nobel laureate and famed cricket lover, Harold Pinter.
As a professional journalist of long standing, Henderson conveys all this was a wonderful economy of prose, with not a word wasted or without impact. I bought this as a cricket lover, but it is really a paean to British and European culture.
In this marvellous book, Michael Henderson, known primarily for his years as cricket correspondent writing in most of the leading newspapers at one time or another, displays his own extensive hinterland. In addition to a cornucopia of glorious cricketing memories, he takes the reader along with him in tangential forays into opera, literature, art and history.
In his regular articles on cricket, Henderson was seldom reluctant to express an opinion, caring little for established conventions if he felt they needed to be challenged. Yet even when I found myself disagreeing with him (which, I now realise, happened far less frequently than I might have expected), I was always impressed with what Sir Humphrey might have termed his ‘refreshing directness’. I could always follow his reasoning, too.
In this book, any residual reluctance to express his views has evaporated entirely, and he bemoans the impact of the relentless search for popularism on the noble game of cricket. It is easy to dismiss naysayers to new forms of cricket simply as knee-jerk reactionaries, opposed to change as a matter of principle. More than most sorts, cricket has a bedrock of Adullamites, constantly looking to a Corinthian past largely of their own imagining, and impervious to any hint of change. I don’t think that Henderson’s dismay falls into that category. He certainly makes no secret of his dislike, even scorn, at the recent trends in cricket, such as the predomination of the T20 format, which has almost driven out the long-established first class county game in England, or, even worse, the hullaballoo surrounding the imminent introduction of ‘The Hundred’ (still some way off in the future at the time Henderson was writing, but now launched). He does, however, offer soundly constructed arguments as to why he believes that these are dangerous developments.
Although a lifelong lover of the game, I am not sufficiently qualified to offer a worthwhile opinion as to whether he is right (although I strongly suspect he is). I can, however, expand on the joy of reading this book. I bought it for his insights and memories about cricket, but cherished it for far more. In between his reminiscences prompted by his last tour of the country as a working cricket correspondent, he weaves rich tapestries about a wealth of other subjects. And what a diverse selection!
In different chapters we are given a whistle-stop tour of the multifarious glories of Vienna; a potted biography of Robert Peel, who as Home Secretary founded the police force, before going on to form the modern Conservative Party; marvellous depictions of most of the great cricket grounds around the country, and a wonderful homage to Nobel laureate and famed cricket lover, Harold Pinter.
As a professional journalist of long standing, Henderson conveys all this was a wonderful economy of prose, with not a word wasted or without impact. I bought this as a cricket lover, but it is really a paean to British and European culture.
May 3, 2021
An elegy on the passing of an era in cricket, arts and England itself.
Although people may view this as a small c conservative diatribe on the state of cricket and the country I saw it more as an honest - and at times beautifully evocative - lament on generational change.
The writer seems to accept times pass - and that this will bring deep sadness to those whose lives have been wedded to a culture that is being left behind.
But as Henderson memorably points out England is an old country whose greatest art evokes ‘both hope and melancholy’, and cricket’s flickering ghosts are its sporting allegory.
Like the writer I prefer the long form game and am not a huge fan of the alcohol-fuelled T20 experience (although unlike him I admire the cricketing skill) and being a Gloucestershire supporter am totally disenfranchised by the Hundred: my nearest ‘team’ is based in Cardiff and called Welsh Fire.
I don’t share much of his disdain for popular culture - each generation has its great artists - and accept that life moves on; succeeding generations will reinterpret the world around them in the context of the times. Even if this means the comforting rhythms of the season are disrupted and redrafted for a new audience. Our natural psychology dictates that we often have a romanticised view of the past.
But it doesn’t stop a welling of regret and nostalgia when the long shadows appear at the end of another season - a melancholy the writer expresses so well in this book.
Although people may view this as a small c conservative diatribe on the state of cricket and the country I saw it more as an honest - and at times beautifully evocative - lament on generational change.
The writer seems to accept times pass - and that this will bring deep sadness to those whose lives have been wedded to a culture that is being left behind.
But as Henderson memorably points out England is an old country whose greatest art evokes ‘both hope and melancholy’, and cricket’s flickering ghosts are its sporting allegory.
Like the writer I prefer the long form game and am not a huge fan of the alcohol-fuelled T20 experience (although unlike him I admire the cricketing skill) and being a Gloucestershire supporter am totally disenfranchised by the Hundred: my nearest ‘team’ is based in Cardiff and called Welsh Fire.
I don’t share much of his disdain for popular culture - each generation has its great artists - and accept that life moves on; succeeding generations will reinterpret the world around them in the context of the times. Even if this means the comforting rhythms of the season are disrupted and redrafted for a new audience. Our natural psychology dictates that we often have a romanticised view of the past.
But it doesn’t stop a welling of regret and nostalgia when the long shadows appear at the end of another season - a melancholy the writer expresses so well in this book.
June 13, 2024
“There can be no summer in England without cricket,” wrote Neville Cardus, the great weaver of words in English cricket’s heyday. I know this because both the back cover and the fifth line of the introduction of this book tell me. The premise of the book, or at least of its title, seems to be that a new, highly processed, fast-food version of cricket, The Hundred, was about to eviscerate the first-class game in England by confining it to spring and autumn bookends of the season. When it did so, that would be England gone and the book would serve as an elegy for what had been lost.
‘That will be England gone’, we are later told, is a quote from ‘Going, Going’, a poem Philip Larkin wrote in 1971 about the changing face of England, in particular the effect of urban development and sprawl. But Neville Cardus did not say that without cricket there would be no England; only that without cricket there can be no summer in England. Henderson’s lament, seems to become much greater: that without the county championship dominating the cricket season there will be no England.
I was mistaken to think, from the book's subtitle, the Cardus quote and the cover photograph, that the book is primarily about cricket. Sometimes it seems to be only incidentally about cricket. Evocative writing about cricket is skilfully woven throughout, but the book often seems to be more about the wider England that the author loves and feared would sink without trace when The Hundred holed the ship of county cricket below the waterline. Henderson no doubt sees cricket as an integral part of the wider England he loves. Of CLR James’s book Beyond a Boundary he writes, “Any true love of cricket, it may be argued, includes life beyond a boundary.”
Neither Neville Cardus nor the author could have foreseen that in the year of the book’s publication (2020) a coronavirus pandemic would mean no county cricket until August. The Hundred was postponed until 2021. The first-class cricket that did eventually take place was without spectators and with bizarre ball-wiping and polishing protocols. Umpires wiped the ball with sanitiser at regular intervals or whenever any outside agent touched it—without altering its behaviour through the air or off the pitch, it seems—and players were forbidden to use saliva to polish the ball.
Reading the book, as I mistakenly did, for an affectionate portrait of English county cricket before the heart was torn out of it by The Hundred, I was disappointed. For me there was too much about the cultural life of Michael Henderson and the famous people—sportsmen, writers, musicians, rockstars, playwrights, actors—he lunches with, goes to the theatre with or hangs out in the pub with.
The book begins with the author warming lyrically to the English landscape seen from the Malvern Hills, reflecting on its history, art and literature as he scans it. Only on the fourteenth page of Chapter 1 does cricket step onto the field of play before the mind moves on to school days, Jimi Hendrix and football. Cricket then re-appears on the thirty-first page and finally gets a good first innings as the author tells us about his childhood experiences of cricket, from school to test match.
Each of the nine chapters takes us to one or two arenas of cricket, including school cricket (Repton), test match grounds (The Oval, Lord’s Trent Bridge, Old Trafford), club cricket (Ramsbottom), cricket festivals (Scarborough, Chesterfield, Cheltenham) and provincial grounds (Canterbury, Leicester, Taunton). This does at least show that there is much more to English cricket and the English summer than the county championship.
In ranging over cricketing sights and seasons, current and historic, the author also reminisces, sometimes predominantly, on his personal cultural life, sometimes linking it with the cricket but not always. Henderson’s writing, however, is often delightful, not only in the silky phrases and sentences he effortlessly spins but also in the scenes and moods he evokes. His account of a season-ending, championship-deciding, career-closing match at Taunton, woven around folksinger Roy Harper’s song, When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease, makes you wish you had been there at the time.
Of David Hughes taking 24 runs off an over in the Gillette Cup: “It was a Noah’s Ark of an over: two sixes, two fours, two twos.” After wandering through Viennese coffee houses and Berlin art galleries, somehow we arrive at Trent Bridge: “not a stadium but a cricket ground”. Compare that with Old Trafford: “Now it is a stadium without a soul and without a sense of history.” Of cricket’s HQ: “Lord’s is a ground where spectators are neither customers nor cheerleaders. They are witnesses.” Of Botham’s 1981 century at Old Trafford: “thrown off in the heat of a Test match against Australia like a country boy scrumping apples”.
While I mourn with Michael Henderson the passing of much that we have lost and are threatened with losing in English cricket, I don’t think he justifies his implication that without a full-season county championship ‘that will be England gone’. As he anticipates “the last summer of cricket some of us will recognise as proper cricket”, he mourns, “All gone, like Imperial Rome.” All gone? A great loss but club and village cricket, pleasing the eye, marking the miles and stirring memories as they do on any weekend journey through England in the summer, seem to me to be more of the essence of it. While they continue, the England we know is not gone.
The question remains: what effect will the emasculation of the professional cricket season in England have on the wider game? It may damage the health of Test cricket, the tree for which it is the root system. What knock-on effect might there be in club and village cricket? The Beeching railway closures of the 1960s, it seems to me, accelerated the decline in the railways by forcing people into their cars for journeys they still might have made on the train. The capillaries do not carry much blood but they are essential to the health of the whole body. Might the ECB surgeon, seeking to cure cricket’s financial ills, have finished the patient off or left him with life ‘but not as we know it’?
‘That will be England gone’, we are later told, is a quote from ‘Going, Going’, a poem Philip Larkin wrote in 1971 about the changing face of England, in particular the effect of urban development and sprawl. But Neville Cardus did not say that without cricket there would be no England; only that without cricket there can be no summer in England. Henderson’s lament, seems to become much greater: that without the county championship dominating the cricket season there will be no England.
I was mistaken to think, from the book's subtitle, the Cardus quote and the cover photograph, that the book is primarily about cricket. Sometimes it seems to be only incidentally about cricket. Evocative writing about cricket is skilfully woven throughout, but the book often seems to be more about the wider England that the author loves and feared would sink without trace when The Hundred holed the ship of county cricket below the waterline. Henderson no doubt sees cricket as an integral part of the wider England he loves. Of CLR James’s book Beyond a Boundary he writes, “Any true love of cricket, it may be argued, includes life beyond a boundary.”
Neither Neville Cardus nor the author could have foreseen that in the year of the book’s publication (2020) a coronavirus pandemic would mean no county cricket until August. The Hundred was postponed until 2021. The first-class cricket that did eventually take place was without spectators and with bizarre ball-wiping and polishing protocols. Umpires wiped the ball with sanitiser at regular intervals or whenever any outside agent touched it—without altering its behaviour through the air or off the pitch, it seems—and players were forbidden to use saliva to polish the ball.
Reading the book, as I mistakenly did, for an affectionate portrait of English county cricket before the heart was torn out of it by The Hundred, I was disappointed. For me there was too much about the cultural life of Michael Henderson and the famous people—sportsmen, writers, musicians, rockstars, playwrights, actors—he lunches with, goes to the theatre with or hangs out in the pub with.
The book begins with the author warming lyrically to the English landscape seen from the Malvern Hills, reflecting on its history, art and literature as he scans it. Only on the fourteenth page of Chapter 1 does cricket step onto the field of play before the mind moves on to school days, Jimi Hendrix and football. Cricket then re-appears on the thirty-first page and finally gets a good first innings as the author tells us about his childhood experiences of cricket, from school to test match.
Each of the nine chapters takes us to one or two arenas of cricket, including school cricket (Repton), test match grounds (The Oval, Lord’s Trent Bridge, Old Trafford), club cricket (Ramsbottom), cricket festivals (Scarborough, Chesterfield, Cheltenham) and provincial grounds (Canterbury, Leicester, Taunton). This does at least show that there is much more to English cricket and the English summer than the county championship.
In ranging over cricketing sights and seasons, current and historic, the author also reminisces, sometimes predominantly, on his personal cultural life, sometimes linking it with the cricket but not always. Henderson’s writing, however, is often delightful, not only in the silky phrases and sentences he effortlessly spins but also in the scenes and moods he evokes. His account of a season-ending, championship-deciding, career-closing match at Taunton, woven around folksinger Roy Harper’s song, When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease, makes you wish you had been there at the time.
Of David Hughes taking 24 runs off an over in the Gillette Cup: “It was a Noah’s Ark of an over: two sixes, two fours, two twos.” After wandering through Viennese coffee houses and Berlin art galleries, somehow we arrive at Trent Bridge: “not a stadium but a cricket ground”. Compare that with Old Trafford: “Now it is a stadium without a soul and without a sense of history.” Of cricket’s HQ: “Lord’s is a ground where spectators are neither customers nor cheerleaders. They are witnesses.” Of Botham’s 1981 century at Old Trafford: “thrown off in the heat of a Test match against Australia like a country boy scrumping apples”.
While I mourn with Michael Henderson the passing of much that we have lost and are threatened with losing in English cricket, I don’t think he justifies his implication that without a full-season county championship ‘that will be England gone’. As he anticipates “the last summer of cricket some of us will recognise as proper cricket”, he mourns, “All gone, like Imperial Rome.” All gone? A great loss but club and village cricket, pleasing the eye, marking the miles and stirring memories as they do on any weekend journey through England in the summer, seem to me to be more of the essence of it. While they continue, the England we know is not gone.
The question remains: what effect will the emasculation of the professional cricket season in England have on the wider game? It may damage the health of Test cricket, the tree for which it is the root system. What knock-on effect might there be in club and village cricket? The Beeching railway closures of the 1960s, it seems to me, accelerated the decline in the railways by forcing people into their cars for journeys they still might have made on the train. The capillaries do not carry much blood but they are essential to the health of the whole body. Might the ECB surgeon, seeking to cure cricket’s financial ills, have finished the patient off or left him with life ‘but not as we know it’?
July 7, 2021
Beautifully written and making some heartfelt points about a game he knows and loves, Michael Henderson sometimes shows that unattractive feature which seems common these days of imagining himself to be an excluded outsider railing against the modern world. Yet he is excluded from nowhere and enjoys a voice denied to many. Nevertheless a generally enjoyable tribute to the long game.
September 8, 2020
Not so much a cricket book, more a ramble around the author's interests. He's clearly led a full and varied life, majoring on the arts as well as cricket. Since I'm a cultural Philistine when it comes to opera etc, the book was just not that interesting to me.
April 28, 2021
I don't doubt the authors love of cricket and his erudition but ultimately this book struck me as rather self-indulgent and it left me rather cold I'm afraid.
August 29, 2022
I first attempted to read Michael Henderson’s reminiscences of the 2019 cricket season, and much more besides, in the Covid destroyed summer of 2020, having received the book as a birthday present. I couldn’t get through it. At points I was thinking, “Seriously?”, feeling the book snobbish, self-indulgent and, at its worst moments, problematic.
Two years later, the book was still sitting by my bed and I decided to give it another go. In some respects, the book is like a soufflé speckled with grit. There are some very well written parts: the chapter on Lord’s, a potential stumbling block if ever there was one, was highly engaging. The prose is often expertly composed and Henderson’s recalls of days long gone occasionally winsome and illuminating.
Yet he writes from a place of privilege, not acknowledged, and how interesting to come to this book in light of the fallout from the recent reports on Yorkshire cricket club. I wondered if this would still be published without some sharp editing now, a mere couple of years further down the road. Henderson appears to have a tin ear about race, in particular, and a line early on about British youngsters no longer playing cricket, ‘except Asians’, especially grates. In the final chapter, he has a bit of a go at Moeen Ali, whilst in other places, lauds the work of private schools in keeping the game going. One wonders who exactly Henderson wants to play for England, but his views appear to represent those that have come into extensive critique in the wider discourse in cricket in England in recent times.
It may not help that I’m an Irishman, who has grown up loving the game and supporting England, thanks to the BBC’s ubiquitous coverage of the national team in the 1980s. I’m sensitive to ideas of nationality, who belongs and who is excluded. Henderson genuinely doesn’t seem to get this or thinks that the privileged white male hierarchy has done everything it can and should do to support others’ access to the game, without resorting to horrors like the Hundred. Henderson could do worse than listen to the eloquent female players of the game, whose profile has risen exponentially thanks to this apparent abomination. The game is certainly for those beyond the confines of the public school system, a point well made in Andrew Flintoff’s recent documentary. By contrast to the young men struggling to find their way in that series, Henderson’s life appears to revolve around lazily drifting through multiple English cricketing outposts in the summertime and then supplementing this with extensive European retreats to the rarefied airs of various orchestras during the off season. It feels to me that he isn’t even aware that most people couldn’t live like this even if they wanted to. Which raises the inevitable question. Given that Henderson’s life is full of such pleasures, what exactly is the point of his argument?
Two years later, the book was still sitting by my bed and I decided to give it another go. In some respects, the book is like a soufflé speckled with grit. There are some very well written parts: the chapter on Lord’s, a potential stumbling block if ever there was one, was highly engaging. The prose is often expertly composed and Henderson’s recalls of days long gone occasionally winsome and illuminating.
Yet he writes from a place of privilege, not acknowledged, and how interesting to come to this book in light of the fallout from the recent reports on Yorkshire cricket club. I wondered if this would still be published without some sharp editing now, a mere couple of years further down the road. Henderson appears to have a tin ear about race, in particular, and a line early on about British youngsters no longer playing cricket, ‘except Asians’, especially grates. In the final chapter, he has a bit of a go at Moeen Ali, whilst in other places, lauds the work of private schools in keeping the game going. One wonders who exactly Henderson wants to play for England, but his views appear to represent those that have come into extensive critique in the wider discourse in cricket in England in recent times.
It may not help that I’m an Irishman, who has grown up loving the game and supporting England, thanks to the BBC’s ubiquitous coverage of the national team in the 1980s. I’m sensitive to ideas of nationality, who belongs and who is excluded. Henderson genuinely doesn’t seem to get this or thinks that the privileged white male hierarchy has done everything it can and should do to support others’ access to the game, without resorting to horrors like the Hundred. Henderson could do worse than listen to the eloquent female players of the game, whose profile has risen exponentially thanks to this apparent abomination. The game is certainly for those beyond the confines of the public school system, a point well made in Andrew Flintoff’s recent documentary. By contrast to the young men struggling to find their way in that series, Henderson’s life appears to revolve around lazily drifting through multiple English cricketing outposts in the summertime and then supplementing this with extensive European retreats to the rarefied airs of various orchestras during the off season. It feels to me that he isn’t even aware that most people couldn’t live like this even if they wanted to. Which raises the inevitable question. Given that Henderson’s life is full of such pleasures, what exactly is the point of his argument?
July 29, 2024
Seeing the word 'lyrical' in the blurb was a cause for concern, but that didn't prepare me for this tedious, and terrible, book.
The premise was that this was the last summer before The Hundred changed the nature of English domestic cricket, a cricket season to which Henderson devoted all of about 2 paragraphs, with the occasional vintage cricket anecdote thrown in as well. Most of it consisted of his opinion of various artistic works, from novels and plays to symphonies and songs, along with descriptions of assorted towns.
About the most positive thing I could say is that his love of literature, and dislike of the modern pop that cropped up, seemed genuine rather than an affectation. However the highlights were when I was merely bored, rather than metaphorically rolling my eyes at the earnest use of the word 'grotty' to describe several towns, his defence of private schools which was no more than a phone-in worthy sequence of tropes (he of course went to one) and looking down on Oasis, Factory Records and Eastenders.
Seemingly any thought he'd ever had on art or the geography of Britain was included, in an unwarranted, assertive style that presented his opinions as fact without any depth or supporting reasoning. I generally see minimal value in quotations from novels and plays stripped of their context, but even so this was a particularly bad abuse of the genre, and I really wish I'd given up entirely rather than skim-read the second half. This might have been justified as a sideshow to the supposed subject of the book, but I wonder what was actually cut from the drafts, and whether it was more cricket, which is sparingly featured. Much like any aspect of culture, Henderson clearly prefers the highbrow version of the game, but other than to fit in with the cultural elites, it's not made apparent why.
The premise was that this was the last summer before The Hundred changed the nature of English domestic cricket, a cricket season to which Henderson devoted all of about 2 paragraphs, with the occasional vintage cricket anecdote thrown in as well. Most of it consisted of his opinion of various artistic works, from novels and plays to symphonies and songs, along with descriptions of assorted towns.
About the most positive thing I could say is that his love of literature, and dislike of the modern pop that cropped up, seemed genuine rather than an affectation. However the highlights were when I was merely bored, rather than metaphorically rolling my eyes at the earnest use of the word 'grotty' to describe several towns, his defence of private schools which was no more than a phone-in worthy sequence of tropes (he of course went to one) and looking down on Oasis, Factory Records and Eastenders.
Seemingly any thought he'd ever had on art or the geography of Britain was included, in an unwarranted, assertive style that presented his opinions as fact without any depth or supporting reasoning. I generally see minimal value in quotations from novels and plays stripped of their context, but even so this was a particularly bad abuse of the genre, and I really wish I'd given up entirely rather than skim-read the second half. This might have been justified as a sideshow to the supposed subject of the book, but I wonder what was actually cut from the drafts, and whether it was more cricket, which is sparingly featured. Much like any aspect of culture, Henderson clearly prefers the highbrow version of the game, but other than to fit in with the cultural elites, it's not made apparent why.
May 4, 2024
An elegiac look at the decline of English county cricket and by implication test cricket, due to the rise of shorter and shorter formats such as T20 and the Hundred. The reason for this, the author argues, is purely commercial and has no reference to the quality or love of the actual sport. The dramatic and operatic sweep of the true format (i.e. four/five days) of the game is sadly absent in these shorter formats with their inelegant strokes, flame throwers and loud pop music.
The author's reminiscences are based in the summer of 2019 when England won the world cup and there were five ashes tests. This year also marked the end of the county championship in its standard format which is now shunted to the bookends of the summer season in April and September. So there are no longer any county games during the summer months in England. According to Neville Cardus' often quoted line that there could be no summer in England without cricket that time has therefore come.
The author also covers the general decline in the nation's culture and arts, in particular the BBC in its lack of imagination and courage to produce genuine quality programmes and the dumbing down of Radio 3 and associated musical criticism.
The book also covers poetry, art galleries, literature, films and as a digression, Lancashire comedians. Even though the outlook is not optimistic for cricket, music and culture generally the book is far from depressing because of the sheer quality of the author's prose which is both elegant and stylish and he wears his considerable knowledge and erudition very lightly. It is a terrific read which is nostalgic but also piercingly accurate in its observations.
The author's reminiscences are based in the summer of 2019 when England won the world cup and there were five ashes tests. This year also marked the end of the county championship in its standard format which is now shunted to the bookends of the summer season in April and September. So there are no longer any county games during the summer months in England. According to Neville Cardus' often quoted line that there could be no summer in England without cricket that time has therefore come.
The author also covers the general decline in the nation's culture and arts, in particular the BBC in its lack of imagination and courage to produce genuine quality programmes and the dumbing down of Radio 3 and associated musical criticism.
The book also covers poetry, art galleries, literature, films and as a digression, Lancashire comedians. Even though the outlook is not optimistic for cricket, music and culture generally the book is far from depressing because of the sheer quality of the author's prose which is both elegant and stylish and he wears his considerable knowledge and erudition very lightly. It is a terrific read which is nostalgic but also piercingly accurate in its observations.
April 21, 2023
I was bought this book as a gift as I’m a bit of a cricket fan. This is only half a cricket book and a bit of a tough read.
Although I’m sympathetic to the author’s distaste for significant amounts of “progress” in the professional game, as well as the decline of our shared native towns and city (the chapters on Ramsbottom and Old Trafford), it does become somewhat tedious and bitter. The only exception would be his delight at Trent Bridge, which as a now-local, I also adore.
A significant part of every chapter involves the author talking through classical music or literature and trying desperately to relate this to a cricketing anecdote.
Perhaps it’s my age (30) or lack of high-cultural knowledge but I didn’t really like this book.
Ultimately, if you have a similar background and taste to the author (including all things dramatic, theatrical and orchestral, as well as cricket), you might like this book. If you just want to read a book about English cricket, look elsewhere.
Although I’m sympathetic to the author’s distaste for significant amounts of “progress” in the professional game, as well as the decline of our shared native towns and city (the chapters on Ramsbottom and Old Trafford), it does become somewhat tedious and bitter. The only exception would be his delight at Trent Bridge, which as a now-local, I also adore.
A significant part of every chapter involves the author talking through classical music or literature and trying desperately to relate this to a cricketing anecdote.
Perhaps it’s my age (30) or lack of high-cultural knowledge but I didn’t really like this book.
Ultimately, if you have a similar background and taste to the author (including all things dramatic, theatrical and orchestral, as well as cricket), you might like this book. If you just want to read a book about English cricket, look elsewhere.
June 17, 2021
I was annoyed, at first, by this book, expecting it to be about cricket, given that’s what it claimed, depicts on the cover and says in the blurb. Henderson is also a cricket journalist. Mind you, that didn’t seem to stop a long list of inaccuracies insignificant, perhaps, in themselves but an indication of some hasty writing and sloppy editing. Edward Thomas wasn’t killed on the Somme, but at Arass; Beecham didn’t declare that all Elgar’s music was like St Pancras station, only one of the symphonies; Roald Dahl didn’t recall being beaten, while at Repton , by Geoffrey Fisher but recounts, in “Boy”, how a friend was. And so on and so on. Small errors; sloppy writing. Irritating reading. Perhaps Henderson should’ve stuck to cricket!
June 17, 2022
Henderson is an elegant and experienced writer and the prose flowed well. I found the heavy cultural references an interesting technique but one that didn’t appeal to me - I am not really a lover of opera or classical music. The sense that I got from the book is that Henderson is struggling with how are country is changing - and with it the game of cricket. As someone who can be sentimental, I enjoy reflecting back, but at the same time, so many changes in cricket and wider society have been hugely positive. One disappointment was that there were no solutions offer to how the game to help keep traditional fans engaged. For a memoir of watching the 2019 season, I would go for Duncan Hamilton’s book every time.
July 18, 2021
An exploration of Englishness by way of cricket, with excursions to Elgar and Vaughan Williams, Ken Dodd, Vienna, Harold Pinter, Powell and Pressburger and others. It’s nostalgic, and I don’t agree with everything, but it’s thought-provoking.
The book focuses on the 2019 English cricket season, which Henderson saw as the end of an era. If COVID-19 hadn’t changed the plans, 2020 would have seen the start of The Hundred, a new short-form cricket competition designed to appeal to a new audience. It starts in a few days’ time and there will be no long cricket at the height of the school summer holidays. I agree with Henderson that that is sad.
The book focuses on the 2019 English cricket season, which Henderson saw as the end of an era. If COVID-19 hadn’t changed the plans, 2020 would have seen the start of The Hundred, a new short-form cricket competition designed to appeal to a new audience. It starts in a few days’ time and there will be no long cricket at the height of the school summer holidays. I agree with Henderson that that is sad.
November 9, 2022
Beautiful, elegiac treatise on English cricket, as much a sneak peak at Henderson's address book as a book on sport. His reactionary views on the modern game have offended some, but they are views I share; things ain't what they used to be. No one could argue the world's getting any smarter, but this book celebrates the more esoteric moments in life, and there's always space on my bookshelf for a writer like that
January 19, 2021
Plenty to enjoy here, and agree with, particularly the accounts and descriptions of places, cricket grounds and matches that I too attended in 2019 or long before.
Did find it a bit over indulgent at tines though- Too much meandering off into historical detail I thought.
Perhaps the author trying to impress with his knowledge and cleverness too much.
Did find it a bit over indulgent at tines though- Too much meandering off into historical detail I thought.
Perhaps the author trying to impress with his knowledge and cleverness too much.
January 7, 2023
A mixture of cricket and classical music and much more - would have preferred more cricket . He journeys round various cricket counties and festivals bemoaning their demise and the advent of the 100. Very traditional and almost reactionary . Some lovely vignettes about players and counties . Very well written as you would expect from someone of his pedigree.
July 4, 2023
Very well written, unashamedly nostalgic. Many good and relevant references to 'the arts' throughout the book. Rather pessimistic for the future of the game he ( and I ) clearly loves. I wonder if he still watches the game now that the ghastly ( and largely unloved ) )Hundred is in place.
i do think his somewhat snide comments about Leicestershire/Grace Road went too far.
i do think his somewhat snide comments about Leicestershire/Grace Road went too far.
March 10, 2021
Every cricket fan who passes the age of 55 moans about cricket like Henderson does in this book. Where has the glorious game gone? Where is it going? He does so convincingly, though. Woe, and and thrice woe. The end is near!
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