Golden Summers: Personal reflections from cricket's glorious past

by Phil Walker (Editor), Jo Harman (Editor), Matt Thacker (Editor)

Every cricket lover, for better or worse, has their year. The year it all fell into place or all fell apart. A year of triumph or disaster; of tragedy or comedy. This being cricket, there’s normally a bit of everything. Covering 50 different seasons, from 1934 right up to the weird summer of 2020, a series of journalists, poets, musicians, comedians, and ex-players – plus the odd England captain – have come together to produce a collection of personal essays, using the game of cricket as the backdrop to tell the story of their own Golden Summers. 50 voices for 50 each one delving into the year that means the most to them. This is Golden Summers.

Hardcover

Published November 30, 2020

Reviews

[Keith Astbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a while since I last read a cricket book, but this one appealed to me.

What you get are various writers, broadcasters and the odd player writing a 2-3 page article about a particular cricketing year. Obviously some are better than other - Mark Wood's 2019 piece deserves a quick mention as it provided an interesting insight into a current player - but they are all worth a read. Actually, I wish they had covered every year rather than selected ones. would I'd have definitely liked more 70's seasons as that is when I fell in love with the game.

There's a heavy emphasis on English cricket, but not exclusively so with writers of various nationalities recounting memorable matches, series and competitions involving their own countries. Lots of good photo's, too x

[S Ravishankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine compilation of Cricketing memories ( mostly of English Summers ) from the pre-war, post-war and the past decades since then. Each chapter is the initial memory of each writer; how he got hooked onto the game. Some writers are famous players; others are esteemed writer and journalists. What effuses in each chapter is the writer’s love for the game; some nice stories relating to major players of the game and a personal view of the game.