John Wisden founded the most iconic cricket annual in 1864: the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Its publication is eagerly awaited every year. Steeped in Wisdens as we are, we thought we’d take a closer look at the man himself.

John Wisden was born in Brighton in 1826. His father died when he was a boy and Wisden went to live with Sussex wicketkeeper, Tom Box. Wisden’s talent as a cricketer was obvious from early on. By the age of 18, he had made his debut for Sussex versus Kent. He took 6 wickets in the first innings; 3 in the 2nd innings.

John Wisden soon became one of the star cricketers in the mid-19th century. He was tiny. He was 5’6″ tall and weighed 44 kilos. Somehow, however, he had ‘the power’: he was an exceptionally effective fast bowler and was deemed to be one of the best all-rounders of his time. In 1850 he played for the North versus the South at Lord’s. He claimed all 10 wickets in the second innings, all of which were clean bowled – a unique feat still in first class cricket! In the same year John Wisden took 340 wickets in 38 matches. Wisden’s nickname soon became ‘Little Wonder’ after the winner of the 1840 Epsom Derby.

Again in 1850 Wisden began to branch out from just playing cricket.  He was a cricket coach at Harrow School from 1852-55. He also began making and selling cricket equipment and in 1855 he set up a cricket and cigar shop with Fred Lillywhite. In 1864 Wisden retired from cricket. Coincidentally…or not, that was also the year that his first Almanack appeared.

John Wisden’s Cricketer’s Almanack soon eclipsed its rivals due to its scrupulously accurate statistics and editorial independence. The first Wisden in 1864 was, however, a fairly eclectic mix of facts and figures. The almanack was 112 pages thick. It provided cricket scorecards and  statistics…along with racing winners, the rules of quoits, the dates of the Crusades and an account of Charles I’s trial!

In 1872  Wisden set up his sports goods shop, John Wisden & Co in Cranbourn Street near Leicester Square. You can still see its plaque on the building today. Wisden died in 1884, by which time his Almanack had seen off its competition and was firmly established as cricket’s book of record. Wisden was buried in Brompton Cemetery in London. To commemorate Wisden’s 50th anniversary in 1913, the Almanack dispensed with its annual selection of its ‘Cricketers of the Year’. Instead it chose to create a ‘special portrait’ of a prominent individual. In this case it was its founder: John Wisden

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Martin Sheridan’s obituary in the New York Times described him as ‘one of the greatest athletes the United States has ever known’.

Martin Sheridan was actually born and brought up in County Mayo, Ireland. The USA was very quick – and sensible – to claim him  as one of their own, soon after he stepped upon their shores! Sheridan was born in Bohola, County Mayo in 1881. He stayed in Ireland until he was 18. Then he followed his older brother, Richard, to New York. There Martin Sheridan became a physical trainer and then a policeman.

Martin Sheridan was 6’3″ and 194 lbs, a fair old size at the beginning of the twentieth century. He was also extremely strong and athletically talented. He specialised in throwing and jumping, competitively. Over the course of his competitive life he won 12 US Championships and over 30 Canadian titles.  Those were the national titles…Sheridan won 5 gold Olympic medals over the course of 3 Olympics: 1904 in St Louis, Missouri; 1906 in Athens and 1908 in London for discus and shot put. He won two silver medals for the Standing High Jump and Standing Long Jump. The man was virtually unbeatable over a 14 year period, during which he established 16 world records.

Sheridan had by this time officially become American but, understandably, Ireland has always laid claim to him too. They quickly gave him the accolade of having won more Olympic medals than any other Irish athlete. When he returned to Ireland after the 1908 London Olympics, he imagined he would ‘slip into’ Ireland quietly to see his family. Instead, as his train drew into Swinford Station, people thronged the platforms and the town’s band played ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’.

Sheridan returned to New York and policing after his athletics career. He was always held in huge esteem. He saved four children and their parents from certain death in a burning building. He also was the New York Governor’s personal bodyguard whenever the governor was in town. Sadly, strong and mighty as he was, Martin Sheridan’s life was cut short by the 1918 flu epidemic. He was one of its earliest casualties in 1918.

We have a fantastic book about him in our NEW STOCK catalogue launched today: both book and catalogue are well worth a look.

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Is politics a logical next step after a successful career in sports?  Former athletes, Lord Coe, Sir Menzies Campbell, Sir Chris Chataway and Kate Hoey have certainly all achieved.  We looked at the careers of three exceptional, past  cricketers too to gauge potential success. Results were mixed!

It’s almost an insult to classify CB Fry as ‘just’ a cricketer. He was one of the most consummate all-round sportsmen Britain has ever produced. A brilliant scholar too, he won 12 blues in different sports at Oxford and earned the nicknames, ‘Almighty’ and ‘Lord Oxford’. He was a talented golfer, rugby player, swimmer, tennis player, javelin thrower, sculler and boxer. He played football for Southampton too.

England cricket can be grateful that Fry decided to focus his sports career on cricket. Captain of Sussex and England, England never lost a Test match when CB was at the helm. CB Fry was at his peak in 1901 when he totalled 3,147 runs, an average of over 78 runs per innings. He scored 13 100s and created a record of 6 centuries in 6 consecutive innings in little more than 14 days. England were still looking for him to captain their side when he decided to retire at 49 in 1921.

Fry’s foray into politics was not quite so successful. He failed 3 times to become a Liberal MP. In 1934 he was charmed by Hitler in a meeting with him and Ribbentrop. Reportedly Fry tried to persuade Hitler and Ribbentrop that the Nazis should take up Test cricket. Possibly Fry’s greatest political hope was the offer of the vacant throne of Albania in 1920s. He was offered it while at the League of Nations as secretary to India’s then delegate, one RS Ranjitsinhji. Unfortunately in order to accept, he needed to have an income of £10,000 p.a. and Fry was notoriously short of money throughout his life. Hence no Charles III of Albania in the history books!

Another captain of Sussex and England dipped his toe into politics too, one Ted Dexter. An aggressive, swashbuckling cricketer – again, among many other accomplishments – Dexter decided to enter politics in 1964. England captain at the time, Dexter declared himself unavailable for the 1964-65 South Africa tour because he expected to become an MP in the 1964 election.

He became the Conservative candidate for Cardiff South East, pitting himself against the then Shadow chancellor, one James Callaghan. Callaghan had been the sitting candidate since the constituency was created in 1950. Cardiff South East was then a community of principally dockers and factory workers. Dexter, or Lord Ted as he was nicknamed early on for his aloof self-confidence, did not appeal massively to his potential consituents. His comment that Labour-voting households “could be identified by their grubby lace curtains and unwashed milk bottles on the doorstep” was not a vote winner either.

At the election, Callaghan increased his majority from 868 to just under 8,000. Luckily Dexter was able to return to his day job and joined the South Africa tour as vice captain after all. He made 344 runs in 7 Test innings, an average of 57.

We have to turn to the great Pakistani cricketer, Imran Khan for a more established political foothold. Khan made his debut for Pakistan when he was 18 in 1971 at Birmingham during their England tour. He then played for them from 1976 – 1992, captaining the side during that period too. As captain, he led Pakistan to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup, Pakistan’s first and only victory in that competition. Imran Khan retired in 1992 as one of Pakistan’s most successful players. He scored 3,807 runs and took 362 wickets in Test cricket.

In 1996 Imran Khan founded the Pakistan Movement of Justice Party, the PTI and became the party’s leader. Over the last twenty years he has ridden the turbulent waves of Pakistan politics to  take his party to become the 2nd largest party in the National Assembly in 2013.  Since then his political influence has continued to ebb and flow with the twists and turns of his country’s politics. He has, in any case, achieved significantly, but these sportsmen make it clear to us that politics is an even greater minefield to success than becoming an international sportsman or woman. Given the chance, we know which career path we’d choose!

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What cricket score can be equalled but never beaten?

Your first Christmas teaser that can be answered from an item of sports memorabilia in our  Christmas catalogue…

An edition of the Bulletin of the Military Historical Society for May 1973 (SKU 63262)  explains all. On page 119 is an account of an extraordinary cricket match that took place in Shillinglee, Sussex, in 1855. The 2nd Royal Surrey Militia team were dismissed for 0, a record that has been equalled but can never be beaten.

Paperback. 8vo. 32pp. Very good condition.

A correspondent to the Bulletin gives a great account of how the record was achieved. Since then, teams have tried hard to achieve the same kind of record. It was left to a Kent team in 2016 to get closest in an indoor county chanpionship match. Bapchild Cricket Club were bowled out for 0 in just 20 balls by Christ Church University in Canterbury – a fairly unenviable achievement by Bapchild CC!

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Christmas is coming to Sportspages…with our new Christmas Catalogue, part two

The second part of our Christmas catalogue is out now, packed with over 40 fantastic and often rare items of sports memorabilia. You can have a look at it by clicking here  and on our Catalogues page  along with all our other catalogues there.

Many of the sports memorabilia items in the catalogue have a great story to them and one of our favourites has

got to be the official match ticket for a famous rugby match in Wales. On 28th September 1935 Swansea played the All Blacks at St Helens in front of 35,000 spectators on a wet and windy day. The team included two cousins and schoolboys, Haydn Tanner and Willie Davies. They led the charge against All Blacks that day to take Swansea to victory – the first non-international team to beat the All Blacks. Swansea won 11-3. New Zealand’s captain, Jack Manchester, begged the New Zealand press, “Don’t tell them we were beaten by a pair of schoolboys.

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Footballers are on the move again in this month’s football transfer window.  Remember the first £1 million transfer deal, done in 1979? Legendary Nottingham Forest manager, Brian Clough bought Trevor Francis from Birmingham City for £1,180,000 including VAT and fees. Francis’ deal was double the amount received by Liverpool when Kevin Keegan was sold to Hamburg only two years earlier.

It’s hard to understand how football transfer fees have increased so extraordinarily over the last 40 years. Manchester United’s  reputed, present £25 million bid for  Arsenal’s Sanchez seems almost modest next to Coutinho’s recent £142 million  and Neymar’s £222 million transfer fees.

It’s worth remembering too that Trevor Francis arguably sang for his £1 million ‘supper’ by subsequently helping

Nottingham Forest to win the European Cup in 1979 and 1980. How easy is it to prove you’re worth £222 million…or are we just suffering from a self-effacing, lack of self-confidence?!

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Our New Stock catalogue  is out now, packed with fantastic items of sports memorabilia. Big names from various sports feature heavily: cricket’s Jack Hobbs and Les Ames; golf’s Henry Cotton; football’s Ray Wilson and Bob Paisley and athletics’ legendary Zatopek, to name but a few.

Two characters stand out for both their achievements and their too short lives. Colin Blythe was one of England’s greatest slow, left-arm bowlers, who took over 2,500 wickets for Kent and England. Born in 1879, he enlisted in the army in 1914 like so many of his generation. He was killed by shell fire at Passchendaele in 1917.

Another great achiever, whose life was cut short, was Lady Mary Heath or Sophie C Eliott-Lynn. Her story is extraordinary. She was an orphan at 0ne when her father bludgeoned her mother to death. Two maiden aunts brought her up subsequently and tried hard to discourage Sophie’s passion for sports.

They were unsuccessful. Sophie C Eliott-Lynn was Britain’s first female javelin champion. In 1923 she represented the United Kingdom at the 1923 Women’s Olympiad. She came third in the high jump, javelin throw and women’s pentathlon. In 1925 Her book, ‘Athletics for Women and Girls’ was published. In 1926 she competed at the Women’s World Games. She then turned her hand at flying.

Now married and known as Lady Mary Heath, she soon  became the first woman to hold a commercial flying licence in Britain. At 31, Heath became the first person to fly in an open- cockpit plane, solo from South Africa to Egypt. Tragically she was badly injured in an air crash only a year later and was never the same again. She died n 1939 from a fall, after years of alcoholism.

Short as Blythe and Eliot-Lynn’s lives may have been, they both achieved phenomenally and lived their lives to the absolute brim. They have also given us all the great joy of appreciating and enjoying their trails of success – one of the many pleasures that sports memorabilia offers.

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The Winter Olympics are not often the scene for British sporting triumphs. At this year’s Olympics we have 4 medals to date, one of which is gold. We may possibly win another medal, which would make the Pyeongchang Olympics our most successful Winter Olympics ever.

We have, however, managed a few sporting coups at the Winter Olympics over the years. One of the greatest and most surprising might  be Britain’s gold medal at the 1936  Olympics in Germany. The British men’s ice hockey team beat the then reigning champions, Canada, that year. Canada had won the event for four preceding, consecutive Olympics. Britain had, in fact, a spectacularly successful ice hockey team at the time. It was the first team to become Olympic, World and European Champions, all in the same year.

The 1936 Winter Olympics was notable in its own right. Held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, it was the last time that a winter and summer Olympics was held in the same country in the same year. Hitler was, of course, Germany’s leader at this time. Months before the winter games an English reporter visited Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He saw several signs, saying ‘Jews not wanted’ and ‘Jews not allowed’ in the village. He took a photo of one of them above the Partenkirchen ski clubhouse. The photo was published throughout the world.

A movemement formed in the US to boycott the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympics.  It threatened the entire German Olympic Project. Germany could not risk countries pulling out of their planned Olympics showcase in Berlin months later.  So Berlin ordered all anti-semitic signs and posters removed in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and presented themselves to the outside world as a ‘friendly dictatorship’. Their ice hockey captain was , in fact, Jewish, the only Jew to represent Germany at the Games.  The British ice hockey team even performed a Nazi salute during the Games out of ‘respect to their hosts, the German People’.

Of course ice hockey at the Olympics has the power to surprise in 2018 too. The appearance of a united North and South Korean women’s ice hockey team has definitely earned the term ‘historic’. They may not have won any medals – or any games! – but they certainly won the prize for most rapturous and warm reception at this year’s Olympic Games. Long live Olympics upsets and surprises – they’re a huge part of the Games’ appeal.

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How many male footballers can be described as an England World Cup Winner?! Very few, but Ray Wilson could. An England player, who started his career with Huddersfield Town, Wilson died a few days ago at 83. He was a quiet, modest, key member of England’s 1966 winning football team.

England’s men’s football team winning the World Cup is not something many people today have experienced or remember and, if truth be told, can easily imagine happening now! Maybe we need to go back to basics and learn a few lessons from the likes of Ray Wilson and his background.

Ray Wilson grew up in Shirebrook, a small mining pit village in Derbyshire. In his own football autobiography, he describes his childhood as, “Back street football. A paper round. A punch on the nose. This was my heritage.”  He also noted that, “We had no toys but…all we ever needed was a ball.”  He worked hard, kept his head down and managed to break through to professional football in 1952. Wilson went on to play under four great managers: Bill Shankly; Harry Catterick; Walter Winterbottom and, of course, Sir Alf Ramsey.  Along with winning the World Cup, he helped Everton win the FA Cup too in 1966: the championships were just six weeks apart!

Ray Wilson was the oldest member of England’s World Cup squad in 1966 at 31. He retired from football five years later. He returned to Huddersfield with his family and became an undertaker. How times really have changed! Ray Wilson had an immensely successful football career and yet always retained a humble, modest,  footballing approach. The only thing flashy about Ray was his name: called after his mother’s favourite Hollywood star, his first name was actually Ramon. Try pulling that one off, growing up in a Derbyshire pit village in the 1940s! It seems particularly poignant to say goodbye to Ray Wilson as we ‘limber up’ for the start of the 2018 World Championship in Russia. Maybe Today’s England team will show that humility, doggedness and resilience too…

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What cricket score can be equalled but never beaten?

Your first Christmas teaser that can be answered from an item of sports memorabilia in our  Christmas catalogue…

An edition of the Bulletin of the Military Historical Society for May 1973 (SKU 63262)  explains all. On page 119 is an account of an extraordinary cricket match that took place in Shillinglee, Sussex, in 1855. The 2nd Royal Surrey Militia team were dismissed for 0, a record that has been equalled but can never be beaten.

Paperback. 8vo. 32pp. Very good condition.

A correspondent to the Bulletin gives a great account of how the record was achieved. Since then, teams have tried hard to achieve the same kind of record. It was left to a Kent team in 2016 to get closest in an indoor county chanpionship match. Bapchild Cricket Club were bowled out for 0 in just 20 balls by Christ Church University in Canterbury – a fairly unenviable achievement by Bapchild CC!

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Sportspages’ New Stock catalogue is packed with rare items and sports memorabilia, detailing iconic and extraordinary sports events. We were spoilt for choice when we tried to choose a few to highlight. In the end we plumped for three extraordinary football matches. In each of them a team finished with a result football teams can only dream about.

On the 26th December 1963, Fulham played a legendary match against Ipswich Town. Not only did Fulham win 10-1, but Graham Leggatt scored a record breaking hat trick in 3 minutes. Fulham were understandably on Cloud 9 at the end of that match. Sadly, their euphoria did not last long. Two days later they lost their next match: 4-2. Guess who they were playing? Ipswich Town – in the return fixture. It’s hard to imagine which was the sweeter victory?!

Ted Macdougall pulled off a fantastic string of goals for AFC Bournemouth on 20th November 1971. In a fourth division match against Margate, he scored 9 goals. As a result he found himself rubbing shoulders with the Portuguese legend, Eusebio, and England’s World Cup heroes: Geoff Hurst and Jimmy Greaves. Geoff Hurst had read about Macdougall’s achievement and promptly invited him to join an all-star World XI match at West Ham.

Both Fulham and Ted Macdougall’s achievements were spectacular footballing results but we have a programme in Sportspages’ new stock catalogue with an even more extraordinary final score. On the 8th December 1984, in the first round of the Scottish FA Cup, Stirling Albion played Selkirk at Annfield Stadium. They beat Selkirk: 20-0, the highest score between 2 British clubs in the twentieth century. Stirling Albion had started the match very focused after a team talk from their manager. They had been knocked out the previous year by a non-league team and their manager told them in no uncertain terms that that could not happen again. Stirling Albion scored 5 in the first half…and then picked up momentum. Willie Irvine scored 5 goals; Davie Thompson scored 7. By all accounts Selkirk took their defeat in a gentlemanly, gracious manner. Presumably they had been taken way beyond the losing pain barrier where nothing could hurt them any more!

Enjoy these items and their stories and so many more in our most recent, Sportspages’ new stock catalogue here

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Two huge cricket records at the Oval smashed  by two different cricketers and best friends in the last Test match before one of them retires from international cricket…it reads like a plot of a corny cricket novel. But, as we all know, James Anderson and Alastair Cook made it happen in the latest Test match, England v India, at the Oval. Cook had already announced his imminent retirement so we all knew this was to be his last innings as an international batsman. He clearly didn’t dwell on the fortunes of a legendary, ‘invincible’ batsman’s last innings at the Oval sixty years before him. Donald Bradman, still with a possibly unbeatable Test match average of 99.4, was  then cruelly out for a duck.

Alastair Cook, on the other hand, seemed calm and unfazed as he ratcheted up his 118 runs in the fifth and final Test. That made him the  England player with the most Test centuries; the most Test runs, having played the most Test matches for England. On the 1st March 2006 Cook scored his first England century against India. On the 10th September 2018 Cook scored his last England century against India…and, of course, his last international century ever.

James Anderson, not to be outdone by his best friend, took his 450th Test wicket in the same match. He became ICC’s top ranked Test match bowler for the first time. He broke Glen McGrath’s record for Test wickets and so stepped into the lead for being the fast bowler to take the most wickets in Test cricket history. Both Anderson and Cook’s records and achievements are phenomenal.

If we wanted to be really picky about the pair, however, we might suggest they put a tiny bit of the kind of incredible effort they’ve put into their skills and achievements as cricketers into the naming of their respective cricket autobiographies. Alastair Cook, “Starting Out. My Story so Far”; James Anderson, “My Story”…it reminds us a bit of that corny cricket novel again…

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The (ab)use of the pun in the titles of sports books: 

The use of puns in the titles of sports books, particularly biographies, is nothing new. 1951 gave us Plum Warner’s “Long Innings” and Jim Laker’s “Spinning Round The World”, and so a new tradition was established. Ever since these early attempts at punnery any sportsperson who was tempted to put pen to paper, however misguidedly, could tap into the rich resource thrown up by unusual sporting terms and phrases. To be honest, the vast majority need more than just a promise of dressing room banter and blow by blow accounts of their on-field triumphs to help sell their books. If Steve Davis had called his autobiography simply “My Story” or “I won Lots of Snooker Matches” instead of “Frame and Fortune” life could have been very different.

Often the pun gives a clue to the sport involved – “A Game to Love”  by – surprise, surprise –  tennis’ Ann Jones, Bernhard Langer’s  “While the Iron is Hot”, “Life in the Fast Lane” by Eddie Irvine and “Another Hurdle” by David Hemery. It can also relate to the role or position that the subject played in his/her chosen sport. Who can guess what the subjects of these books did for a living? “The Breaks Are Off”, “Running Commentary”, “I Declare”, “Right Back To The Beginning”, “In The Long Run” and “In Safe Keeping” – answers below.

Cricket books probably give the best opportunities for this approach – “All Round View” (Imran Khan), “A False Stroke of Genius” (Wayne Larkins), “The Gloves Are Off” (Godfrey Evans), “Lasting the Pace” (Bob Willis), “Runs in the Family” (John Edrich) and “Over and Out” (Denis Lillee) being some good examples. Some puns can be unforgivable – a serial offender was Graham Dilley with “Swings and Roundabouts” and “Hick and Dilley Circus”, but there are others – “No Bull” (Andy Bichel) and “Playing it Straight” (Ken Barrington) take a bow. One cricket title is so obvious that it has been used more than once – Geoff Boycott, Glenn Turner and Mike Atherton all used “Opening Up”. I wonder if Alastair Cook will be tempted to follow in a great tradition.

Rugby and football also provide opportunities for the play on words – “Centre of Excellence” (Jim Renwick), “Rubbing Shoulders” (Phil Blakeway) and “Kicked Into Touch” (Paul Thorburn) being a few from rugby. Football books include “Heading For Victory” (Steve Bruce),

“Leaping To Fame” (Peter Bonetti), “By The Book” (Clive Thomas), “Back At The Top” (Bill Foulkes) and “Managing My Life” (Alex Ferguson).

Of course, the lure is far stronger if the title hints at some far more interesting extra-curricular activity – “No Half Measures” (Graeme Souness), “Wasted?” (Paul Smith), “Rock Bottom” (Paul Merson), “Fast and Loose” (Martin Offiah), “Back From The Brink” (Paul McGrath) and my favourite, “One Hump or Two?” (Frank Worthington).

It is surely no coincidence that two not so legendary “characters” of British sport, Steve Davis and Nick Faldo, have chosen puns – Faldo twice, with “Life Swings” and “The Rough With The Smooth”. Given his more colourful private life, these are probably well chosen. Another common approach is to incorporate your name into the pun, such as “Pat On The Back” (Pat Eddery), “Hunt For Goals” (Roger Hunt) and “Ball of Fire” (Alan Ball) – which was also used by “Fiery” Fred Trueman.

Terry Downes came up with the inspired title “My Bleeding Business” for his 1964 autobiography but how is it possible that John Prescott was the first to come up with “Pulling No Punches”? Come on you ex-boxers, it is time to put your hat in the ring. My new autobiography, “Magnus Bowles ‘Em Out”, which includes full details of each of my six wickets this season as well as some revealing stories from the pub afterwards, will be in the shops soon.

The answers to the Titles quiz above:

“The Breaks Are Off” – Graeme Swann (off-break bowler)

“Running Commentary” – David Moorcroft (distance runner and commentator)

“I Declare” – Mike Denness (cricketer and England captain)

“Right Back To The Beginning” – Jimmy Armfield (footballer who normally played at right back)

“In The Long Run” – Jim Peters (distance runner)

“In Safe Keeping” – Alex Stepney (goalkeeper)

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Our most recent New Stock catalogue has come out on Black Friday. The catalogue might not come with deals off. It does come, however, packed with 100 items of new and interesting sports memorabilia from our ever increasing collection.  As ever there are gems from most sports in the catalogue. One outstanding item is a fantastic photographic record of Arsenal from the 1950s.

Commander A F Bone was a Director of Arsenal from 1946 – 62 and was presented with a leatherbound photograph album, containing over 50 fine quality photographs of Arsenal FC: training sessions, back room photos and action photographs, including ones from the 1950 FA Cup Final

Another bit of sports memorabilia treasure is the silver cigarette box presented to Denis Compton as a memento of the 1954-55 Ashes cricket series. Inscribed with his initials and the date of the ‘MCC Australasian Tour’, it’s a beautiful reminder of another age in which a cigarette box was an appropriate gift to anyone, let alone an international sportsman! Take a look at our catalogue and all its goodies inside: New Stock catalogue 

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