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Ashes to Ashes: 35 Years of Humiliation (and about 20 Minutes of Ecstasy) Watching England V Australia
This is Marcus Berkmann's brilliant and hilarious account of the highs and lows, let's face it mainly lows, of watching Ashes cricket for 35 years.
- GenresNonfiction
313 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2009
23 people want to read
About the author
Marcus Berkmann
39 books11 followersMarcus 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 10, 2018
Quite entertaining in places especially when describing the lesser players but too much of the story is over-familiar for me to give this Christmas present more than 3 stars...
August 27, 2023
Enjoyed this, but it felt quite ploddy after a while, much as I love Ashes cricket. Game after game and series after series recounted, and felt like it needed a better format than this.
November 26, 2023
Enjoyed this book and brought back lots of (not so)happy memories of following England over the years!
February 25, 2025
Third Berkmann I’ve finished after the 1990s inspired by true events Rain Men, about a village team, and the catalogue of everything cricket called Berkmann’s miscellany which I devoured.
This is a lot of Berkmann detailing the facts of every Ashes series since 1972 (when it came into his life more or less). There’s plenty of funny commentary on selection debacles, useless England players etc.
It gives details on all the captaincy changes too.
Main takeaway is reinforcing what I already knew and that it, simply put, this. The England cricket team really were crap in the 1990s, or what Berkmann calls ‘the dark ages’ - not helped by the revolving door selection policy along with Australian players ‘Tubs’ Taylor and ‘the flinty-eyed one’ S Waugh making runs for fun against our pedestrian attack.
This is a lot of Berkmann detailing the facts of every Ashes series since 1972 (when it came into his life more or less). There’s plenty of funny commentary on selection debacles, useless England players etc.
It gives details on all the captaincy changes too.
Main takeaway is reinforcing what I already knew and that it, simply put, this. The England cricket team really were crap in the 1990s, or what Berkmann calls ‘the dark ages’ - not helped by the revolving door selection policy along with Australian players ‘Tubs’ Taylor and ‘the flinty-eyed one’ S Waugh making runs for fun against our pedestrian attack.
July 20, 2014
It is not a full history of the Ashes, but a recollection of the Ashes series that Berkmann remembers from the early seventies. Quite depressing in parts when you realise just how dreadful we were as a cricket team. That and the partisan nature of the selectors must have driven people to drink. I didn't watch all of the 81 Ashes when Botham was at his best, but I remember seeing some of it on the telly. I saw as much of the 2005 series as i could.
A must read for a cricket fan, but not as funny as his other cricket books.
A must read for a cricket fan, but not as funny as his other cricket books.
May 6, 2012
Berkmann peppers the book with thoughtful insights about cricket and English self-doubt, but this is really the sort of book that only people who were there (or listening to TMS or watching it on TV) can enjoy. Which is to say that I enjoyed it a lot, at least the bits that I remember (or have read enough about to pretend to remember). I sometimes wonder how my life would be different I hadn't stumbled onto the 2005 Ashes, but I'm awfully glad that I did.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews