Britain's Lost Cricket Festivals by Chris Arnot

Britain's Lost Cricket Festivals by Chris Arnot

Visiting 30 lost festival grounds from Bournemouth to Abergavenny, Weston-super-Mare to Harrogate, Chris Arnot talks to former players, ground staff, club secretaries and spectators to re-live the days when the world’s finest players, from Denis Compton to Barry Richards, came to town for one week only, packed the beer tent and thrilled the crowds. Armchair cricket at its best, this is an exploration of the declining phenomenon of the cricket festival – when one of the county cricket clubs takes a week or so of games out of its home ground to a club ground somewhere else in the county, often at the seaside, and attracts a large and festive crowd to a bucolic arena fringed with white marquees, beer tents and deckchairs. Nowadays many counties don’t venture beyond their Test match-standard stadia all season, and other, once peripatetic counties like Essex, who used to play at Southend, Colchester, Chelmsford, Clacton, Westcliff and Leyton during a single season, now only leave the County Ground once a season at most. Following the huge success of Britain's Lost Cricket Grounds, Chris Arnot goes in search of the boundary ropes from around the country - from Essex at Southend to Wellingborough School - to relive the time when the greats of the international game including Glenn McGrath and Ian Botham lit up summer's afternoons at the summer cricket festivals.

‘Chris Arnot celebrates this rich but fraying tapestry of country cricket with reminiscences of matches and deeds played out on these grounds’

‘This is a handsome book in every sense, well-written and smartly presented, with dozens of fine photographs’

'This book is a real joy for anyone insterested in cricket, its history, leading players and characters.'

‘ If you’ ve got an eye for history and a love of the county game, the stories and images in this book will give you a real pleasure.’

‘ Chris Arnot celebrates this rich but fraying tapestry of country cricket with reminiscences of matches and deeds played out on these grounds.’

'This book is a real joy for anyone insterested in cricket, its history, leading players and characters.'

‘ This is a handsome book in every sense, well-written and smartly presented, with dozens of fine photographs’

Chris Arnot is a national freelance feature writer who has written on specialist subjects including arts and education, property, pubs, food and travel. A regular contributor to the Guardian, he has also written for the Daily Telegraph, the Independent and the Observer. He co-wrote The Archers Archives for BBC Books and his book, Britain's Lost Cricket Grounds, was long-listed for the MCC's cricket book of the year in 2011. He is also the author of Britain's Lost Breweries and Beers, published by Aurum.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781781311202
ISBN 10	178131120X
Title	Britain's Lost Cricket Festivals
Author	Chris Arnot
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Quarto Publishing PLC
Year published	2014-05-15
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.