How to be a Cricket Fan: A Life in 50 Artefacts From WG to Wisden

by Matthew Appleby

How to be a Cricket Fan: A Life in 50 Artefacts From WG to Wisden is a unique, nostalgic take on supporting the greatest sport, pre-internet. This relatable, universal story records how one cricketing obsessive encounters players from WG Grace to Ben Stokes, plus plenty of characters you're unlikely to have come across. With running themes of Wisden, sportsman's dinners and otterhounds, the book's hero meets Ian Botham and Linda Lusardi on the A6, drinks red wine while showing Fred Trueman his priceless collection and drives his family mad by taking them on summer holidays to buy John Arlott's old books. The colourful images on cigarette cards and the yellow linen cover of Wisden succoured a wartime evacuee who spent a lifetime trying to bring back those memories. After facing ruin, his passion culminated in him finding happiness in a dream career. This is the story of an English eccentric's journey from cricketing backwaters to entertaining the stars and becoming a leading authority on the game.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2023

Reviews

[The Tractor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A touching and engaging read about a son inheriting his fanatical dad's love of cricket - as well as his vast cricket memorabilia collection.

You don't need to be interested in cricket - I'm not - to enjoy this book. Any sports fan or collector of Panini stickers back in the day will be able to relate to it, along with anyone who formed a bond with their father through a love of sport or other shared past time.

Edgar Lawson Appleby (ELA) sounds like a one-of-a-kind, larger-than-life character with his somewhat eccentric/obsessive attention to the finest of cricketing details but his asides to Matthew - 'One day, all this will be yours' and 'Don't tell your mother' are also ones that plenty of offspring will recognise from fond memories of their own childhoods...