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A Social History of English Cricket
Winner of the William Hil Sports Book of the Year and acclaimed as a magesterial, classic work, A Social History of English Cricket is an encyclopaedic survey of the game, from its humble origins all the way to modern floodlit finishes.
But, it is also the story of English culture, mirrored in a sport that has always been a complex repository of our manners, hierarchies and politics. Sir Derek Birley's survey of the impact on cricket of two world wars, Empire and 'the English caste system', will, contends Ian Woolridge, 'teach an intelligent child of twelve more about their heritage than he or she will ever pick up at school'.
Superbly witty and humorous, peopled by larger-than-life characters from Denis Compton to Ian Botham, and wholly forswearing nostalgia, A Social History of English Cricket is a tour-de-force by one of the great writers on cricket.
But, it is also the story of English culture, mirrored in a sport that has always been a complex repository of our manners, hierarchies and politics. Sir Derek Birley's survey of the impact on cricket of two world wars, Empire and 'the English caste system', will, contends Ian Woolridge, 'teach an intelligent child of twelve more about their heritage than he or she will ever pick up at school'.
Superbly witty and humorous, peopled by larger-than-life characters from Denis Compton to Ian Botham, and wholly forswearing nostalgia, A Social History of English Cricket is a tour-de-force by one of the great writers on cricket.
400 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
About the author
Derek Birley
16 books1 followerSir Derek Birley was an English educator and writer who had a strong interest in sport, especially cricket.
He was educated at grammar school in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, and at Queens' College, Cambridge University.
He was educated at grammar school in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, and at Queens' College, Cambridge University.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 2, 2012
Reads like watching watching Chris Tavare bat
see http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/...
As the song goes "I don't like Cricket, I love it!" and I have done for nigh on 40 years, since the days when 'The Windies' ruled the World. In that time I've watched a succession of England and Warwickshire greats like R.G.D .Willis and his mile long run up, Botham's British Beef, Derek Randall's Sublime fielding, Jack Russell's Artistic eccentricity, the pace stamina and sheer brilliance of Alan Donald or Brian Lara not to mention World greats like Viv Richards, Abdul Qadir, Sunhil Gavaskar, Glen McGrath...etc. etc...
Okay you get the point...
I also like history and seeing as this book is about both, then it should be right up my street.
It wasn't.
I found each chapter akin to eating a Jacobs Cracker whilst running a sub Saharan marathon
Man, this book is hard work!
There's some interesting stuff to be gleaned from between the minutiae of some 200 years of cricket but having batted on stoically for 6 chapters I decided to up stumps and abandon play for lack of interest.
Pity!
This book won awards, so it's a personal thing,
but hey, in my humble opinion, life's too short for books like this or maybe I should revisit it when I retire.
May 19, 2025
Interesting overall, and well regarded research and writing/prose. But very dry in sections and while I feel I learned a lot about cricket and County Championship history, I don’t feel as if I learned much about the sport of cricket and its arch into the 21st century version, nor did I learn much about the “social” aspect of the sport vis-a-vis societal developments. That is, this could have had a base of English football or golf and it would have had a similar rhythm; professionals were second class citizens to gentleman and then eventually professionals overcame obstacles to be the well-paid and respected leaders of their industry.
Would recommend to an English cricket fan, but perhaps not a general fan or someone new to the sport. As a historical work, though, it is excellent.
Would recommend to an English cricket fan, but perhaps not a general fan or someone new to the sport. As a historical work, though, it is excellent.
April 15, 2025
This is much lauded book, but I found it a tough read. From my perspective, it wasn’t a true social history. The first few chapters dealt with the development of the sport within the wider context of the emergence of leisure time and sports in the 1700s, but the bulk of the book could be classified as more of a narrative history of the county championship. Each section started with an overview of the social, political and economic landscape of the period of history, but these were often not well contextualised.
However there were some interesting nuggets and Birley had a healthy level of irrelevance to the institutions and class systems of English society throughout the centuries, which provided useful insight. Unusually the writing oscillates between being convoluted and impenetrable, with witty, pithy quips. Here were some of my favourites.
‘To say that the MCC showed a lack of leadership is to mouth a truism that could have been uttered at any time in cricket history’. – early 1800s
‘Mitford is also interesting as an early exponent of the xenophobic (and sometimes racist streak) that characterises much English cricket writing’.
‘[Prince Albert] was a firm believer in progress through science, free trade, and similar serious subjects, which inevitably made him seem both comic and sinister to the cheerfully disorganised and xenophobic British.’
‘Since … the decline in gambling MCC did not take cricket as seriously as before, showing more interest in the purely social side of things.’
‘The tourists shocked their Australian hosts by their rapacity – selling equipment, buying up cheap gold and jewellery, soliciting gifts and making pigs of themselves at welcoming functions.’ – 1863 Parr’s England tour of Australia.
On double cricket and football internationals in the Victorian era ‘the very number of these raises the question as to whether technically standards were quite so high as they subsequently became’.
Plum Warner writing under a thinly veiled pen name in The Times about a ‘faultless’ hundred that he had scored himself 20 years before.
Warner again on the fact that captaincy carried off-field responsibilities ‘these were better shouldered by an amateur than a professional’.
‘It was all very reassuring that democracy was evolving without getting too far out of hand.’ On two day matches at Lords between top public schools and the national schools competition winners in the 1950s.
‘Boycott, a by-word for self-centered dedication to the cause of trying to make himself into the world’s greatest batsman’.
The Pakistan batsman Asif Iqbal, ‘scathing about the peculiar English attitude, bred in public schools, that regarded protective headgear as somehow effeminate’.
However there were some interesting nuggets and Birley had a healthy level of irrelevance to the institutions and class systems of English society throughout the centuries, which provided useful insight. Unusually the writing oscillates between being convoluted and impenetrable, with witty, pithy quips. Here were some of my favourites.
‘To say that the MCC showed a lack of leadership is to mouth a truism that could have been uttered at any time in cricket history’. – early 1800s
‘Mitford is also interesting as an early exponent of the xenophobic (and sometimes racist streak) that characterises much English cricket writing’.
‘[Prince Albert] was a firm believer in progress through science, free trade, and similar serious subjects, which inevitably made him seem both comic and sinister to the cheerfully disorganised and xenophobic British.’
‘Since … the decline in gambling MCC did not take cricket as seriously as before, showing more interest in the purely social side of things.’
‘The tourists shocked their Australian hosts by their rapacity – selling equipment, buying up cheap gold and jewellery, soliciting gifts and making pigs of themselves at welcoming functions.’ – 1863 Parr’s England tour of Australia.
On double cricket and football internationals in the Victorian era ‘the very number of these raises the question as to whether technically standards were quite so high as they subsequently became’.
Plum Warner writing under a thinly veiled pen name in The Times about a ‘faultless’ hundred that he had scored himself 20 years before.
Warner again on the fact that captaincy carried off-field responsibilities ‘these were better shouldered by an amateur than a professional’.
‘It was all very reassuring that democracy was evolving without getting too far out of hand.’ On two day matches at Lords between top public schools and the national schools competition winners in the 1950s.
‘Boycott, a by-word for self-centered dedication to the cause of trying to make himself into the world’s greatest batsman’.
The Pakistan batsman Asif Iqbal, ‘scathing about the peculiar English attitude, bred in public schools, that regarded protective headgear as somehow effeminate’.
August 29, 2023
This regularly tops lists of the best ever cricket books, and it was comprehensive, well-researched and stayed on topic. The general comments about the book suggested it wasn't dry at all; in cricket parlance, I found there was just a bit of moisture in places, and I certainly didn't find it a rollicking read, but rather a bearable set text.
The history in the title is about both the administration and players and the social and political changes in the sport, with little about the results and statistics unless it provided the context to events. As usual for me, the older the history the less interesting I found it - the sources are less reliable, the characters are unfamiliar and the sport itself bears little resemblance to the modern evolution of it. As a result, the first part was more difficult to get through even if it didn't dwell too long on specifics, but it definitely felt like the long book it was.
There was personality in the writing at times, with disdain for the MCC and their 'repositioning of the deckchairs befitting such an institution' and an anti-establishment position throughout. There was more source material from newspaper columns and autobiographies in more modern times that allowed personalities to come through rather than relying on apochryphal stories about 'characters' of old. However it was first and foremost a serious history with a personal take, and wasn't about the writing.
Nonetheless there was a lot to take from it - the financially perilous state of county cricket being an issue since the 'golden age' of cricket before WWI, the inate conservatism and snobbery of those who watch and write about cricket, and the perennial issues about playing styles and the spirit of cricket.
In one sense it did what it set out to do excellently and there was no real fault to find in it. And yet I would struggle to recommend it to anyone as it did feel too much like research, and it does take a lot of time to read, even if there is a lot to take from it. It just about merits 4 stars as Birley did nothing to annoy me, but it could easily have been a 3.
The history in the title is about both the administration and players and the social and political changes in the sport, with little about the results and statistics unless it provided the context to events. As usual for me, the older the history the less interesting I found it - the sources are less reliable, the characters are unfamiliar and the sport itself bears little resemblance to the modern evolution of it. As a result, the first part was more difficult to get through even if it didn't dwell too long on specifics, but it definitely felt like the long book it was.
There was personality in the writing at times, with disdain for the MCC and their 'repositioning of the deckchairs befitting such an institution' and an anti-establishment position throughout. There was more source material from newspaper columns and autobiographies in more modern times that allowed personalities to come through rather than relying on apochryphal stories about 'characters' of old. However it was first and foremost a serious history with a personal take, and wasn't about the writing.
Nonetheless there was a lot to take from it - the financially perilous state of county cricket being an issue since the 'golden age' of cricket before WWI, the inate conservatism and snobbery of those who watch and write about cricket, and the perennial issues about playing styles and the spirit of cricket.
In one sense it did what it set out to do excellently and there was no real fault to find in it. And yet I would struggle to recommend it to anyone as it did feel too much like research, and it does take a lot of time to read, even if there is a lot to take from it. It just about merits 4 stars as Birley did nothing to annoy me, but it could easily have been a 3.
April 2, 2025
An excellent mixture of Sport, and other histories. I didn't realise cricket's foundations were built on so much arrogance and amateurism. It survived though and is today probably stronger for it.
April 24, 2016
This is one only for cricket-lovers, but for them it is an excellent journey through the ways in which cricket has reflected the english society in which it was played and how the game has and has not reacted to the changes in that society.
The book was published in 1999, and it is a shame Derek Birley is no longer with us, as the changes wrought by T20 cricket continue some of the themes of the book, specifically the snobbishness with which too many react to attempts to make the game more accessible to modern spectators,
The book was published in 1999, and it is a shame Derek Birley is no longer with us, as the changes wrought by T20 cricket continue some of the themes of the book, specifically the snobbishness with which too many react to attempts to make the game more accessible to modern spectators,
November 15, 2016
I'm not sure this was in fact a "social" history of cricket. It was very good but concerned itself with the great powers in the early cricketing world rather than the changing face of society in relation to the leather and willow.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews