Lancashire in Print

Lancashire County Cricket Club was formed in 1864 and has been well served by writers over the years. There have been a number of histories, the most recent of which appeared as recently as 2014, so is not far from being up to date.

The first book I will mention appeared first in 1881 and was compiled by Frederick Reynolds. Lancashire County Cricket Club is essentially just a collection scorecards and statistics, but the period feel and brief annual summaries make it interesting nonetheless, particularly the facsimile edition published by Red Rose Books in 2000 with a lengthy introduction from the pen of Gerry Wolstenholme.

Following Reynolds the first narrative history of the club did not appear until 1952, when a slim volume by Rex Pogson appeared in a series of books on the counties from publishers Convoy. A much more detailed and therefore satisfying history appeared a couple of years later. Lancashire County Cricket was written by Archie Ledbrooke, tragically killed just four years on in the plane crash in Munich that decimated Matt Busby’s young Manchester United side.

In 1989 Peter Wynne Thomas authored the Lancashire volume in the Christopher Helm series, and then just a year later local journalist Brian Bearshaw also published a full history, From the Stretford End.

Moving on to the current century 2000 saw the publication by the club of a pictorial history edited by Keith Hayhurst before, in 2014, to mark the club’s 150th anniversary, a lavish history was put together by Malcolm Lorimer, Paul Edwards, Graham Hardcastle and Andrew Searle.

Moving on to books about individual players the earliest Lancashire cricketer to be the subject of a full biography is Albert ‘Monkey’ Hornby. I choose the word ‘full’ with some care because there are, in large part thanks to Red Rose Books, a vast selection of monographs and vignettes on the ancients of Lancashire cricket.

But returning to Hornby, who captained the Red Rose and England. He has been the subject of two biographies on his own, another as part of a famous duo, and is due to be the subject of another, to be published by Max Books in the not too distant future. The two we already have are the somewhat obscure The Cricketing Squire, which appeared in 1991. Stuart Brodkin’s AN Hornby: The Boss, appeared in the ACS Lives in Cricket series in 2013. Hornby also shares the limelight with his old teammate Dick Barlow in Keith Hayhurst’s The Story of a Cricket Stained Glass Window that was published in 2016.

Which leads on to Barlow who, in 1908 published one of the first cricketing autobiographies. He is also featured in the Hayhurst book I understand that Stuart Brodkin is also researching a biography of Barlow. Also a contemporary of Hornby and Barlow was Scotsman Alec Watson who, over a twenty year career, took almost 1,400 wickets at less than 14 runs each. He has also featured in the ACS Lives in Cricket series in a book written by Duncan McLeish. Alec Watson: Chucker? was published in 2015, the sub-title making clear the main controversy in Watson’s long career.

Another Victorian Lancastrian, and a forgotten man today is Edward Roper. Roper was an amateur who enjoyed no great success in First Class cricket but, unusually, played five matches for Yorkshire after his 28 appearances for the Red Rose. He published an autobiography, A Sportsman’s Memories, in 1921. Frank Sugg took the rather more common route of playing for Lancashire after playing for Yorkshire. A reliable batsman who was selected twice for England his story was told in the ACS Lives in Cricket series by Martin Howe in Frank Sugg: A Man For All Seasons, in 2011.

In 1879 Johnny Briggs, arguably still the greatest all-rounder to have turned out for the Red Rose, made his debut. Herbert Turner published The Life of Johnny Briggs in 1902, shortly after Briggs tragically early death. Since then Stuart Brodkin’s Poor Johnny was, in 2007, one of the earliest books in the ACS Lives in Cricket series, and Colin Williamson’s self-published The Professor of Diddling in 2018 have dealt with Briggs’ life. He has also been a popular subject for a number monographs, mainly for Martin Tebay, but also on one occasion for Malcolm Lorimer.

The next Lancastrian to be the subject of what I will call a memoir rather than a biography is Reginald Wood. In the early 1880s Wood played half a dozen times for Lancashire as an amateur with only modest success. He then emigrated to Australia, which is where he was when Alfred Shaw’s team arrived for their 1886/87 tour. Injury problems caused them to call for Wood’s services and as a result he made a single Test appearance and was, for many years, the only England cricketer of whom there was no known photograph. His curiosity piqued Philip Paine mounted an ultimately successful search, all that he discovered being within the 108 pages of his 2007 book, Finally a Face.

A decade after Wood first appeared for Lancashire another young amateur began his county career, AC MacLaren. The name of Archie Mac is a hallowed down this writer’s way, and in 1981 a splendid biography was published, Archie by Michael Down, who is now the genial proprietor of Boundary Books. 

Another amateur, and one who occasionally captained Lancashire, was Gerald Bardswell , an Oxford blue who, due to business commitments, did not play as often as he or the county would have liked. Dying tragically young in the US at just 33 Bardswell is the subject of a double memoir, with his Aunt who wrote a play about the game. The Bardswells: Fact and Fiction, by Derek Deadman and Christopher Sheppard was published in an edition of just 50 copies in 1979.

I shall return to the Tyldesleys collectively later, but here get to deal only with John Tommy, a champion of the Golden Age. It strikes me as little short of remarkable that no full biography of JT has been written, and that all we therefore have is HE Holmes 1912 published JT Tyldesley in First Class Cricket, a largely statistical book and, given its age, far from easy to find.

A good case can be made for conferring the title of the greatest bowler to have played the game on Sydney Barnes although, given that he only ever played two full seasons of county cricket, in some ways he doesn’t count as a Lancastrian at all. Unsurprisingly there have been plenty of books about Barnes. The first is a booklet, Sydney Barnes, by Wilfred White that was published in 1935, Barnes last season with Staffordshire, at the start of the summer in which he turned 62. Subsequently there have been three biographies. SF Barnes: Master Bowler by Leslie Duckworth appeared in, followed by  Leslie Duckworth in 1967, SF Barnes: His Life and Times by Andrew Searle in 1997 and, as recently as 2018, The Legendary SF Barnes, by JL Nicholls.

Jack Sharp and Harry Makepeace have much in common. Their careers ran side by side for a number of years. Both were double internationals, soccer and cricket, and both played with distinction for Lancashire and Everton. The only thing that is slightly surprising is just how many years elapsed before anyone wrote a double biography about them. That finally happened in 2011 when Roy Cavanagh privately published Two Men For All Seasons.

The name of Kenneth MacLeod is another that is seldom remembered. A Scot and a Cambridge blue MacLeod was a quality all-rounder whose business commitments permitted him only four full seasons of cricket. It is however possible to read an account of his life, James Keddie having self-published Then Came A Cloud in 2016.

We have biographies of two more men who began their Lancashire careers before the Great War, although only just. Charlie Hallows made three disappointing appearances in 1914, but when peace returned he became a prolific opening batsman through the 1920s. Hallows most impressive feat was scoring 1,000 runs in May of 1928, and that is the achievement that Martin Tebay celebrated in his 2008 monograph, Charlie Hallows, although there is sufficient other material in it to justify its inclusion here.

‘Ciss’ Parkin played six times in 1914, rather more successfully than Hallows, and in the early 1920s he proved to be a prodigious wicket taker for Lancashire until he left the county in less than happy circumstances. Parkin the writer produced three autobiographies in 1923, 1925 and 1936 and was on of the subjects of David Foot’s Cricket’s Unholy Trinity. You can read more about Parkin the writer here.

There were four Lancashire players whose careers began in the interwar period whose stories have appeared in print. The first was the celebrated wicketkeeper George Duckworth, who was the subject of one of the early volumes in the ACS Lives in Cricket series in 2007. The book, George Duckworth: Washington’s Ambassador at Large, was written by Eric Midwinter.

The year after Duckworth debuted, so in 1924, the much feared Australian fast bowler Ted McDonald was available for Lancashire after completing his qualification period. McDonald served the Red Rose with distinction for eight summers and in 2015 a biography finally appeared of this fascinating character, The Silk Express,written by Nick Richardson.

Eddie Paynter first appeared for Lancashire in 1926, but it was 1931 before he matured into one of the country’s finest batsmen. An autobiography, Cricket All The Way, appeared in 1962. For several years Paynter batted at the top of the Lancashire order with a young Cyril Washbrook. In time Washbrook too wrote an autobiography, Cricket The Silver Lining, a book which appeared in 1948, well before the end of his career. He was later the subject of a joint biography, Hutton and Washbrook, that appeared from the pen of AA Thomson in 1963.

One of Lancashire’s favourite, and most famous sons is the genial but lethal fast bowler Brian Statham. Rightly celebrated throughout his career and later life Statham lent his name to three autobiographies during his career, Cricket Merry-Go-Round (1956), Flying Bails (1961) and A Spell at the Top (1969). A biography by Tony Derlien, Bowled Statham, was published in 1990 and a collection of tributes edited by Malcolm Lorimer, Glory Lightly Worn, in 2001.

In 1954, whilst still a schoolboy, Bob Barber first played for Lancashire. In time Barber would develop into an aggressive opening batsman whose one Test century, 185 against Australia at the SCG in 1966, is an Ashes classic. Sadly for Lancashire supporters Barber was a Warwickshire player by then. His story, Bob Barber: The Gentleman Amateur, was written with its subject’s full co-operation by Colin Shindler and published in 2015.

It was as early as 1955 that Jack Bond first turned out for Lancashire. Never more than a modest county batsman it turned out more than a decade later that leadership was Bond’s forte, as he played a crucial role in shaping the gifted team that made Lancashire the first kings of one day cricket back in the early 1970s. A biography was long overdue by the time it appeared in 2010, but was worth waiting for. Jack Bond: Lancashire Lad, Lancashire Leader by Douglas Miller is one of the very best books to appear in the ACS Lives in Cricket series.

As Lancashire’s fortunes dipped in the early 1960s so did the interest in the teams they fielded but, in time, interesting monographs have appeared about two of them. One of them is The White Flash by Roy Cavanagh, which tells the story of fast bowler Colin Hilton, genuinely quick but who never quite got his radar right at Old Trafford, nor when he tried again with Essex. Another two county man, in his case because he was sacked by Lancashire, was wicketkeeper Geoff ‘Chimpy’ Clayton, who was the subject of slim collection of writings edited by Malcolm Larimer in 2019.

One of Bond’s charges was the now national treasure David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd. The Lloyd autobiography, Anything But Murder, was published in 2000, but his increasingly high profile as a media personality have led to plenty more books that bear Lloyd’s name, all of which have autobiographical elements. G’Day Ya Pommie B……! in 1982 was the first, and that has been followed by, amongst others, The World According to Bumble (2010), Last in the Tin Bath (2015) and Around the World in Eighty Pints (2019).

Lancashire had another Lloyd of course, West Indies captain Clive, who played for Lancashire from 1968 to 1986. There was just one autobiography from Clive, Living For Cricket in 1980, but he has also been the subject of two biographies, Clive Lloyd by Trevor McDonald (1985) and Supercat by Simon Lister in 2007. His Lancashire days were also celebrated in Lancashire’s Clive Lloyd by Tony Derlien in 1987. 

As popular as Clive Lloyd was Lancashire’s other overseas player of the period, wicketkeeper Farokh Engineer who played for the county between 1978 and 1986, and is now a naturalised Lancastrian. Engineer’s exuberant life has been celebrated in two books, From the Far Pavilion by John Cantrell in 2004, and Colin Evans’ Farokh: The Cavalier of Cricket in 2017.

A third man from the ‘Class of ’68’ was Jack Simmons,already 27 when he joined Lancashire but who was to go to play for another 21 summers. An autobiography, Flat Jack, appeared in 1996.

Another several times author amongst Lancashire’s former players is Graeme ‘Foxy’ Fowler whose Lancashire career lasted from 1978 to 1992 before he spent a final few summers with new boys Durham. His first book was Fox on the Run in 1988, the second Absolutely Foxed in 2016 and the, to date last, Mind Over Batter in 2019.

One of the more under rated Lancashire players of the late twentieth century was Ian Austin. Bully For You Oscar is the title of his autobiography, a book that appeared in 2000, a year before his retirement from the game.

Michael Atherton is a modern day Lancashire legend, at his best through the 1990s. There was a post retirement autobiography from Atherton, Opening Up, in 2002. Prior to that David Norrie had published Athers in 1997.

Like Clive Lloyd and Engineer before him in time Wasim Akram, with the county from 1988 to 1998,  came to be regarded as a genuine Lancastrian by the county’s faithful. He has been the subject of two books, the first a dual study of him and his great strike partner for Pakistan, Waqar Younis. Wasim and Waqar by John Crace was published in 1992. Later an autobiography, Wasim, appeared in 1998.

Moving into the 21st century Lancashire have produced two superstars, Andrew Flintoff and James Anderson. Flintoff inspired a slew of books when he was at his peak. He himself gave his name to Being Freddie in 2005, Freddie My World in 2006, Ashes to Ashes in 2009 and Second Innings in 2015. At the peak of his popularity there were also books by Tim Ewbank and Tanya Aldred.

Which just leaves James Anderson, whose autobiography, Jimmy, appeared in 2013. A 2019 book Bowl, Sleep, Repeat is also essentially autobiographical, and one suspects there will be more to come.

The biographies and autobiographies concluded I am now on to miscellaneous books on the subject of Lancashire cricket. Most will be relieved to know that I am not going to extend this article beyond all reasonable bounds by mentioning every publication that Red Rose Books have produced, although to reassure the few who that comment will disappoint it is a subject I intend to revisit, once Martin Tebay has given me a list. Having asked him for one many months ago I suspect that the man himself may be struggling to come up with a definitive catalogue of his extensive oeuvre.

As far as collections of pen portraits are concerned there have been plenty, and one stands out amongst them, Gerald Hodcroft’s My Own Red Roses, which was published back in 1984. Others are the Tempus 100 Greats volume, by Keith Hayhurst, published in 1994, two by Dean Hayes, Lancashire Cricket Legends and Lancashire Cricketing Greats from 2002 and 1989 respectively, and Roy Cavanagh’s Lancashire Cricket Captains 1865-1991 that appeared in 1994. Geoff Ogden’s Born in Bolton is not dissimilar, albeit geographically limited.

There are also several books about Lancashire cricket that deal with short periods in the club’s long history. Just after the war, in 1946 and 1947 Terence Prittie wrote Lancashire Hot Pot and Second Innings, a selection of writings on the club including accounts of those two post war summers.

In the 1960s Lancashire, before Jack Bond’s era, were in the doldrums and two books look at that time, both excellent. The first, in 2009, was Colin Evans’ Mods and Blockers, and the second David Green’s 2015 published Summer of ’65. Also relevant to those times is a small Malcolm Lorimer booklet that appeared at the start of this year, Diary of a Cricket Correspondent, being the content of the contemporary diaries of Brian Bearshaw.

By 1971 everything had changed, and Vernon Addison and Brian Bearshaw’s Lancashire Cricket at the Top faithfully recorded the early years of the Bond era. After that there was another largely fallow period, interrupted by twin one day triumphs in 1991, the subject of a small book from John Gwynne, Double Delight.

In 2011 the 77 years of hurt finally came to an end and Glen Chapple’s side won the County Championship. There had to be a book, and that was provided by Graham Ostick and Graham Hardcastle, Champions: About Bloomin’ Time. There was no repeat performance in 2015 but, with Boulder Rolling, all-rounder Tom Smith’s diary of the season did find its way into print.

And there are more worthy of mention! First of all Eric Midwinter’s look at the two Old Traffords, Red Shirts and Roses that was published in 2005. Then there is Stuart Brodkin’s Great Days in Lancashire Cricket, published by Red Rose last year, and finally another small book from Colin Evans, Sun, Snow and Strike, published in 2015 and an account of a remarkable match at Buxton in 1975 when a day’s play was lost to snow.

Which just leaves me the agony of choice, and my two unwritten books. The first would be a full biography of the playing members of the two Tyldesley families, JT and Ernest on the one hand, and Richard, James, Harry and William on the other. I am conscious of the fact that Roy Cavanagh has published a brief look at the two families, but a full book is long overdue.

My second selection is a book that I do know exists, in draft form at least. It is the story of my own childhood hero, Frank Hayes, and hopefully one day, in the not too distant future, Frank’s fund of stories will see the light of day.