Zimmer Men: The Trials and Tribulations of the Ageing Cricketer

Cricket Men #2

by Marcus Berkmann

Ten years after his classic Rain Men - 'cricket's answer to Fever Pitch,' said the Daily Telegraph - Marcus Berkmann returns to the strange and wondrous world of village cricket, where players sledge their team-mates, umpires struggle to count up to six, the bails aren't on straight and the team that fields after a hefty tea invariably loses. This time he's on the trail of the Ageing Cricketer, having suddenly realised that he is one himself and playing in a team with ten others every weekend. In their minds they run around the field as fast as ever; it's only their legs that let them down. ZIMMER MEN asks all the important questions of middle-aged cricketers. Why is that boundary rope suddenly so far away? Are you doomed to getting worse as a cricketer, or could you get better? How many pairs of trousers will your girth destroy in one summer? Chronicling the 2004 season, with its many humiliating defeats and random injuries, this coruscatingly funny new book laughs in the face of middle age, and starts thinking seriously about buying a convertible.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published July 6, 2005

About the author

Marcus Berkmann was educated at Highgate School and Worcester College in Oxford in the UK. He began his career as a freelance journalist, contributing to computer and gaming magazines such as Your Sinclair. In the 1990s, he had stints as television critic for the Daily Mail and the Sunday Express, and has written a monthly pop music column for The Spectator since 1987.

With his schoolfriend Harry Thompson, Berkmann scripted the BBC Radio comedy Lenin of the Rovers. He came to prominence with his novel Rain Men (1995), which humorously chronicles the formation and adventures of his own cricket-touring team, the Captain Scott Invitation XI.

Berkmann has continued to write newspaper and cricket magazine columns, such as the Last Man In column on the back page of Wisden Cricket Monthly, while producing a number of critically well-received humorous books.

In Brain Men (1999), he applied his sardonic observations to the world of pub quizzes, adopting a similar approach to Fatherhood (2005). In 2005, Berkmann released Zimmer Men, a quasi-sequel to Rain Men describing his transition into middle age with cricket.

Berkmann is also credited as being part of the writing team of the BBC Three comedy show Monkey Dust, and compiler of the Dumb Britain column in Private Eye magazine. In 2009, he set up the quiz company Brain Men with Stephen Arkell and Chris Pollikett.

A Shed of One's Own: Midlife Without the Crisis was serialised by BBC Radio 4 in its Book of the Week slot during 2012. A fan of Star Trek since its first British screening by the BBC in 1969, Set Phasers to Stun: 50 Years of Star Trek, aimed at the general reader, was published in March 2016.

Reviews

[[ J o ] · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Short review from memory until I re-read and re-review at a later date:

Charm, and all that, but I really don't recall much else. Nostalgic, probably.]

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

There seems to be a diminishing return on books about recreational cricket escapades, and reading a second book by the same author even more so. There was the odd funny line, but much of it was similar to what came before and a lot of the rest was filler.

[Mr David Bevan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't enjoy this book as much as the previous one, Rain Men. Sometimes there was too much detail which detracted from anecdote/story. Maybe I'll give cricket books/stories a miss for a while.

[Julie Rodgers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Lloyd Camp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clever! Very funny! Village cricket described as beautifully and wittily as village cricket is played. A smart read.

[Prathiba Swaminathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book from a book swap library at a hotel I stayed in during my vacation, and read it on the flight back home. I haven't followed cricket as much as I would like for a few years now, but this book took me right back to the beautiful sport, and I enjoyed most of the book. This book introduced me to village cricket, and left me entirely smitten. Cricket enthusiasts in England form cricket teams grouped along the lines of a village / club, and play other similar teams on summer weekends. The author narrates their team's escapades playing village cricket, and the anecdotes were funny, endearing, at times even quirky, and almost always charming. A fun read!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, like any given England test match, is a book of contrasting innings. The first blocks, leaves, swings and misses before eventually nicking off trying to knock one out of the park for a swash buckling 20-ball duck. Then, with a chapter called "Raining all over the World", the second comes to the party with cover drives, square cuts and inside-out sixes over extra cover that make anyone over the age of 35 start waxing lyrical with adjectives like 'elegant', 'majestic' and 'Gower-esque'. This book's predecessor 'The Rain men' is one of the funniest money can buy. I was still laughing at it weeks after finishing it. This, by comparison, is a little disappointing but only in that it takes a little while to get up to match fitness. However, once out of the nets, Mr Berkman writes with wit, a self depreciative humour and a sense of comic timing that will always keep me interested in whatever he chooses to publish.

[Reginald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a funny book but will only really be of interest to cricket enthusiasts.
Although I did occasionally laugh out loud it didn't get anywhere near as funny as 'England their England' by A C Macdonnell.This book has a description of a village cricket match which is so funny I couldn't read it out loud to my school class as I kept being overcome by fits of giggles.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming and makes you pleased to be a fan of the odd English game played all over the UK during the summer months.
Plenty of laughs are had, I don't think I'll forget the cricket team that were skilled at chirping!! So to finish..You had me in stitches, Birkey! Dr Birkey? When's the next book out Doc?

[John Grinstead · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really entertaining read - even for non-cricketers or for the cricketing widow - of life as a sad middle-aged (and ageing) social cricketer. Very funny and, alongside Fatty Batter, rates as one of the best accounts of the obsession that is the amateur game.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not many books make me laugh out loud. This one really did-mostly because the references to being a fortysomething and a sad git struck a chord! A must for any cricket fan.

[Ice Bear · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another trip to the village cricket life, ok but a bit repetitive.