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Another Bloody Tour: Another Bloody Tour: the legendary cricket diaries of England in the West Indies 1986
Who can forget Frances Edmonds’ explosive cricketing diaries of the 1980s?
In 1986 an insider cricket memoir rocked the foundations of the sport – but it wasn’t by a player.
Frances Edmonds, married to Middlesex and England player Phil Edmonds – a WAG, no less – had the audacity to write one of the most talked-about cricket books of the decade.
In Another Bloody Tour, her sharp, often hilarious account of England’s devastating 1986 tour of the West Indies, she chronicled the unmitigated disaster of the cricket – along with the politics and scandal that accompanied what became known as the ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll tour’. Despite having been repeatedly told she knew nothing about the game, her perceptive, witty and wickedly irreverent memoir of those disappointing months was a national bestseller.
Now, almost thirty years on, Frances’ account is more relevant than ever. Updated with a new Introduction, here we find that, far more than any other sport, cricket is a microcosm where life in all its grim and glorious facets is vividly reflected.
Since the 1980s the sport has changed immeasurably. Money has altered everything. Pay levels unheard of in the 1980s exacerbate the corrosive effects of having a superstar on the team. Leadership, motivation, team building, brand, crisis management, burn-out, the cult of celebrity and the elusive art of harnessing the star performer: these are challenges consistently encountered in every area of endeavour, but nowhere thrown more sharply into focus than by the madness and mayhem of Another Bloody Tour.
In 1986 an insider cricket memoir rocked the foundations of the sport – but it wasn’t by a player.
Frances Edmonds, married to Middlesex and England player Phil Edmonds – a WAG, no less – had the audacity to write one of the most talked-about cricket books of the decade.
In Another Bloody Tour, her sharp, often hilarious account of England’s devastating 1986 tour of the West Indies, she chronicled the unmitigated disaster of the cricket – along with the politics and scandal that accompanied what became known as the ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll tour’. Despite having been repeatedly told she knew nothing about the game, her perceptive, witty and wickedly irreverent memoir of those disappointing months was a national bestseller.
Now, almost thirty years on, Frances’ account is more relevant than ever. Updated with a new Introduction, here we find that, far more than any other sport, cricket is a microcosm where life in all its grim and glorious facets is vividly reflected.
Since the 1980s the sport has changed immeasurably. Money has altered everything. Pay levels unheard of in the 1980s exacerbate the corrosive effects of having a superstar on the team. Leadership, motivation, team building, brand, crisis management, burn-out, the cult of celebrity and the elusive art of harnessing the star performer: these are challenges consistently encountered in every area of endeavour, but nowhere thrown more sharply into focus than by the madness and mayhem of Another Bloody Tour.
- GenresSports
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 26, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 15, 2019
I've been intrigued by this book for many years because I know the author's husband, who features prominently in the book, very well. When I say "very well", I mean well enough that I spoke to him several times a day for over a decade.
I liked the beginning of the book a lot because her husband, Philippe Henri, featured very prominently in it, and it was very clear that her view of her husband is the same mix of liking and irritation as is felt by pretty much everyone who knows him. I myself have had no end of screaming matches with him, but I had previously assumed that his relationship with his own wife must have been different. Clearly not. From that point of view the book resonated with me on a very personal level.
Once things really got going and the tour started the book began to go downhill. Phil featured less, which is fine as it goes because he's someone of whom it is easy to tire anyway (as evidenced by what happened to their marriage) but the best bits of the book are her relationship with and comments on him anyway - such as her comment that he doesn't need shampoo but merely Pledge and a duster. With Phil more in the background the book just turned into a series of endless whingeing gripes. It also hasn't aged well, with Frances coming across as frumpy, miserable and a bit full of herself - surprisingly, because I thought she was delightful when I met her, though that might have been because she was 20 years more mature than when she wrote the book - and with many of her attitudes now being distinctly politically incorrect if not xenophobic. I'm also deeply suspicious of anyone who uses words like "recrudesce" instead of "recur", which is symptomatic of her writing style being more designed to try and show how clever she is than to entertain.
A couple of chapters in I had visions of reading the sequel. By the end of the book I was limping over the line.
I liked the beginning of the book a lot because her husband, Philippe Henri, featured very prominently in it, and it was very clear that her view of her husband is the same mix of liking and irritation as is felt by pretty much everyone who knows him. I myself have had no end of screaming matches with him, but I had previously assumed that his relationship with his own wife must have been different. Clearly not. From that point of view the book resonated with me on a very personal level.
Once things really got going and the tour started the book began to go downhill. Phil featured less, which is fine as it goes because he's someone of whom it is easy to tire anyway (as evidenced by what happened to their marriage) but the best bits of the book are her relationship with and comments on him anyway - such as her comment that he doesn't need shampoo but merely Pledge and a duster. With Phil more in the background the book just turned into a series of endless whingeing gripes. It also hasn't aged well, with Frances coming across as frumpy, miserable and a bit full of herself - surprisingly, because I thought she was delightful when I met her, though that might have been because she was 20 years more mature than when she wrote the book - and with many of her attitudes now being distinctly politically incorrect if not xenophobic. I'm also deeply suspicious of anyone who uses words like "recrudesce" instead of "recur", which is symptomatic of her writing style being more designed to try and show how clever she is than to entertain.
A couple of chapters in I had visions of reading the sequel. By the end of the book I was limping over the line.
June 3, 2025
This book caused quite a stir when it came out, very little of which was to do with any inherent sexism in cricket (and I'm not denying there would have been some) of the day. The prose was sparkling and erudite, unlike far too many (if by no means all) cricket books of the time. Much more importantly, it told a behind-the-scenes story that was quite unprecedented for a tour diary of the time (since then books like Simon Hughes' A Lot of Hard Yakka have followed suit). Not everyone involved was pleased about that - it was normally the mantra that what happened on tour stayed on tour.
Reading it decades after its publication, it still stands out among books. There is no doubt Mrs Edmonds as she then was is intelligent and highly educated. There is equally no doubt she was anxious to show that to the readers on virtually every page. After a while, her overuse of big words sounded less clever than trying to appear clever. Some of her contemporary authors such as Bernard Levin did it rather better. But more objectionable are the attitudes on display - mild xenophobia and unnecessary snobbery, including intellectual snobbery to those who didn't have her command of the English language and who were mere international cricketers.
Reading it decades after its publication, it still stands out among books. There is no doubt Mrs Edmonds as she then was is intelligent and highly educated. There is equally no doubt she was anxious to show that to the readers on virtually every page. After a while, her overuse of big words sounded less clever than trying to appear clever. Some of her contemporary authors such as Bernard Levin did it rather better. But more objectionable are the attitudes on display - mild xenophobia and unnecessary snobbery, including intellectual snobbery to those who didn't have her command of the English language and who were mere international cricketers.
October 28, 2020
An astonishing, fascinating book. Why does it exist? Was the casual racism and homophobia it displays really acceptable when it was written? Is it awful, brilliant or both at the same time? Extraordinary.
August 9, 2017
Oddly styled in written terms but a sideways look at the "black wash" cricket tour of the West Indies by the wife of one of the players.
May 13, 2019
A combination of original insight, intelligence, biting wit and almost unbearable snobbery that puts into the shade some of the writers of the Golden Age
February 18, 2022
Does seem quite dated now. Although the performance (and comments regarding it) of the team seen remarkably similar to the current teams efforts!!
June 11, 2024
Hilarious and informative - a shame such tour diaries have disappeared
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April 23, 2025Zero stars, avoid. Full review on StoryGraph (rat4167)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews