Somerset Cricketers Revisited: New Discoveries

Martin Chandler | 9:12am BST 08 October 2023

Published: 2023
Pages: 245
Author: Phillips, Barry
Publisher: Private
Rating: 4 stars

It was back in 2016 that the first volume of a series of books profiling each and every cricketer to have played county cricket for Somerset was published. That one covered the period between 1882 and 1914, and between them in three further books, covering 1919-1939, 1946-1970 and 1971-2000, Barry Phillips and co-author Stephen Hill took that on the turn of the millennium. They then combined to do one further self-published book, this time going backwards to cover 1876 to 1890, a period when the men feature represented the county in non First Class fixtures, so then there were five.

Logic would suggest therefore that any sixth book would be one to take the story forward from 2001. With more than twenty years having now passed its time may have come, although one or both of Phillips and Hill having already made it clear they intended to leave that task to others I was perplexed when an email from Barry Phillips arrived in my inbox. In fact it seems he has been unable to leave his subject alone and, perhaps inevitably, the passing years have meant he has been able to gather together enough new material on those already covered to justify another full book.

Barry acknowledges in his foreword that any historical book is inevitably a hostage to fortune where subsequent discoveries are concerned. The wider the research net is thrown, and on a practical level it is difficult to get much wider than every man who has played for a county cricket club in over a century, the greater the amount of further information that will come to light.

For some that inevitability might persuade against further research, but Barry is clearly a better man than that. In terms of committing himself to another book however the catalyst for that was a single discovery, that of the photograph that graces the front cover of the book, one of a Somerset side that took the field in 1881, a full six years prior to what had previously been recognised as the oldest team grouping available. This was a particularly gratifying find because it produced images of three men whose photographs had previously eluded Barry and Stephen, and produced additional and better images of others.

All in all Barry revisits the profiles of 66 of the men featured in the previous books, as well as a number of other Somerset worthies, including three men from the 1881 photograph who did not previously qualify for inclusion. Occasionally the entries are relatively brief, but none quite so much as that for 1960s stalwart Merv Kitchen who, over two sentences, is moved from player 429 to 428 on the basis of an overlooked appearance against Middlesex in 1960.

One gratifying feature of the new information is that a good deal of it has come from readers’ of the previous volumes, although the majority seems to simply be a case of Barry putting in some hard work and reconsidering what he has already discovered. A good example of this is the brothers Hamlet and Ernest Hall. In the first book they appear as players 10 and 43, but although both brothers are still eligible for inclusion in the book Barry is now satisfied that it was Ernest who appeared in 1882 rather than Hamlet, so that the brothers are in fact 43 and 10.

In truth however whilst there are a few not particularly important errors to be corrected, and the odd reinterpretation of previously discovered material, the bulk of what appears is simply interesting new information that Barry would clearly have liked to have put in the original books. The bulk concerns the better known men and those from the distant past. Thus the longest entry relates to Sammy Woods, but there is much new material also on Jack ‘Farmer’ White, Len Braund, Jack McBryan and the brothers Lee.

There is one mea culpa moment however, and that is in relation to Bert Morgan, who had been misidentified in volume 1, being confused with a cousin with a very similar name but who had no cricketing pedigree whatsoever. Every bit as interesting as the biography of the real Bert Morgan is the explanation of what caused the confusion and it is impossible in light of that to do anything other than feel the greatest of sympathy for any researcher who falls into error.

Past events demonstrate that Somerset Cricketers Revisited: New Discoveries should not necessarily be regarded as the last word from Barry Phillips and/or Stephen Hill on the subject of Somerset cricketers, although I doubt that that consideration will deter any purchasers. In truth it is difficult to see why anyone would buy this unless they have the other five books, but by the same token anyone who does all five is surely not going to hesitate in picking this one up, so as the fifth book sold out it seems almost inevitable that this one will too. It can be bought directly from Barry via bpwg@sky.com for £22 inclusive of UK postage – how he has managed to produce such a high quality book at that price is, I have to observe in passing, quite beyond me.