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Wally Hammond : The Reasons Why
Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Very Good, 282pp. Small neat ownership sticker to inside front cover. Upper leading corner sl. bumped ; d/j not price-clipped. A nice clean copy.
260 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 3, 2026
I'm not a fan of biography but made an exception for Wally Hammond, who has a good claim to be England's greatest-ever batsman. David Foot, a journalist who wrote many sports biographies, intended this as a warts-and-all account of the life of an enigmatic man, who was admired and feted, but, it seems, not always well-liked. Instead of the usual catalogue of dusty cricketing feats and rose-tinted memories, he tries to get at the real man behind the headlines - with, in my opinion, mixed success.
A lot of the book concentrates on Hammond's moodiness and occasionally-difficult personality. The author speculates on possible long-term effects of an STD Hammond contracted on a tour of the West Indies in his early 20s, with references to possible consequences of syphilis and the use of mercury- and arsenic-containing drugs in its treatment. Hammond was certainly severely ill for a time, but the medical sources quoted make it fairly clear that the disease was actually Lymphogranuloma venereum, a Chlamydial disease unrelated to syphilis. Of course, Hammond may have had syphilis as well - but in that case we would have to swallow that the great WR Hammond, peerless batsman and superbly athletic fielder until the very end of his career, was suffering from neurosyphilis. It doesn't seem likely. Similarly with the drug side-effects theory. Surely toxicity severe enough to cause personality change, as mooted by the author, would also have had some other neurological consequences difficult to reconcile with a 20+ year career in elite sport ? The notion that a near-death experience followed by months of hospitalisation and the stigma of a "social disease" for a young man in the 1920s, might have had some adverse psychological effects, does not seem to be considered.
And much of the rest of the book is also hearsay and speculation. The novelist Alan Massie (who also wrote biography) comments in one of his novels: "Biography pretends to be the truth about people's lives, but can only deal with what is revealed, which is often not true." Quite. There are retrospective comments and reminiscences from people who knew Hammond, but these are entirely subjective and often contradictory. People who liked him are complimentary, people who didn't aren't. Hammond's love letters to his first wife, penned at a time when he was conducting a series of affairs, are extensively quoted but are clearly witnesses of dubious reliability.
And some of the comments from teammates and other contemporaries seem questionable. The great Yorkshire fast bowler Bill Bowes, for example, is cited a fair bit in the section on Hammond's great rivalry with Don Bradman. One quotation seems very suspect to me: "That man {Bradman} could bat better than anyone else on a corrugated iron roof." I very much doubt Bill Bowes actually said that. If he did, he would be alone among his contemporaries in this assessment. Most of Bradman's teammates and opponents felt that the Don's sole blemish was his mediocre batting on difficult wickets. Some of his more cynical teammates even felt that he didn't try very hard when the going was tough, knowing that in the 20s and 30s another perfect wicket would likely await him in the next game. The man himself tellingly said "Nobody asks Joe Davis to play on a bumpy table." Herbert Sutcliffe, the doyen of sticky wicket batsmanship, would not allow Bradman to be described as the greatest batsman in the world without appending ".......on good wickets". Whereas Wally Hammond, whilst not the equal of Hobbs or Sutcliffe, WAS a great bad wicket batsman. Other unattributed quotes also occasionally make you wonder whether the author's tape recorder or shorthand skills failed him in some interviews.
But then, as Mr Massie says, that's biography I guess. Take it or leave it. And this book is enjoyable enough if you like cricket.
A lot of the book concentrates on Hammond's moodiness and occasionally-difficult personality. The author speculates on possible long-term effects of an STD Hammond contracted on a tour of the West Indies in his early 20s, with references to possible consequences of syphilis and the use of mercury- and arsenic-containing drugs in its treatment. Hammond was certainly severely ill for a time, but the medical sources quoted make it fairly clear that the disease was actually Lymphogranuloma venereum, a Chlamydial disease unrelated to syphilis. Of course, Hammond may have had syphilis as well - but in that case we would have to swallow that the great WR Hammond, peerless batsman and superbly athletic fielder until the very end of his career, was suffering from neurosyphilis. It doesn't seem likely. Similarly with the drug side-effects theory. Surely toxicity severe enough to cause personality change, as mooted by the author, would also have had some other neurological consequences difficult to reconcile with a 20+ year career in elite sport ? The notion that a near-death experience followed by months of hospitalisation and the stigma of a "social disease" for a young man in the 1920s, might have had some adverse psychological effects, does not seem to be considered.
And much of the rest of the book is also hearsay and speculation. The novelist Alan Massie (who also wrote biography) comments in one of his novels: "Biography pretends to be the truth about people's lives, but can only deal with what is revealed, which is often not true." Quite. There are retrospective comments and reminiscences from people who knew Hammond, but these are entirely subjective and often contradictory. People who liked him are complimentary, people who didn't aren't. Hammond's love letters to his first wife, penned at a time when he was conducting a series of affairs, are extensively quoted but are clearly witnesses of dubious reliability.
And some of the comments from teammates and other contemporaries seem questionable. The great Yorkshire fast bowler Bill Bowes, for example, is cited a fair bit in the section on Hammond's great rivalry with Don Bradman. One quotation seems very suspect to me: "That man {Bradman} could bat better than anyone else on a corrugated iron roof." I very much doubt Bill Bowes actually said that. If he did, he would be alone among his contemporaries in this assessment. Most of Bradman's teammates and opponents felt that the Don's sole blemish was his mediocre batting on difficult wickets. Some of his more cynical teammates even felt that he didn't try very hard when the going was tough, knowing that in the 20s and 30s another perfect wicket would likely await him in the next game. The man himself tellingly said "Nobody asks Joe Davis to play on a bumpy table." Herbert Sutcliffe, the doyen of sticky wicket batsmanship, would not allow Bradman to be described as the greatest batsman in the world without appending ".......on good wickets". Whereas Wally Hammond, whilst not the equal of Hobbs or Sutcliffe, WAS a great bad wicket batsman. Other unattributed quotes also occasionally make you wonder whether the author's tape recorder or shorthand skills failed him in some interviews.
But then, as Mr Massie says, that's biography I guess. Take it or leave it. And this book is enjoyable enough if you like cricket.
July 29, 2023
A very interesting book on Wally Hammond, a cricketer who is probably in the all time top 3 English batsmen. A complicated person who wasn’t always the nicest person but was probably misunderstood a lot of time. As the author states it’s a biography more about the man than his cricket career which is interesting in itself and makes it different from most sports biographies.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews