“The Spirit of Cricket” — Book Promo Vol.1
An upside-down journal from the 2023 Ashes.
With my first book on cricket “Ashes to Ashes” successfully published in May 2023 I simply couldn’t resist following this with another and despite my creative love for my first book on cricket, “The Spirit of Cricket” was an altogether different affair, a real pleasure to write and my favourite of the two books. Whereas the first book is a lengthy tome at over 400 pages and covers the overnight madness of watching England through the night on their tours of Australia in 2021/2022, the West Indies and Pakistan in 2022 and New Zealand in early 2023, this book falls fairly and squarely on the 2023 Ashes series with old adversaries Australia and varies differently from my first book in as much as (a) It was a “Home” series here in England so every day and Test Match was during the daytime (b) I often have the wild company of my beautiful son during the day and as he refuses to engage in any sport, even on the pain of death, this had to be lovingly accommodated (c) So we played a lot of card games. A LOT of card games! and (d) This led to a happy accident of ensuring I had another avenue from which to write from and so whilst a book on cricket and the incredible 2023 Ashes series, I ended up writing less and less on the actual cricket.
Which I suspect will be viewed upon by many prospective readers as a plus point!
Published in August 2023, the book weighs in at 259 pages and as you’ll notice from the cover image the card game we played throughout the Summer was a game called “Uno”. Put simply: You follow the colour or number of the card played by your opponent and when you can’t, you pick up a card from the deck. The object of course is to get rid of all the cards in your hand which is made ever more difficult if you have to forfeit your turn or made to pick up extra cards by your opponent. We played umpteen games with the object being to leave the other with the most amount of high value cards in their hand at the end of the game, these were added together to get a winning total for that game and the ultimate object being to race to 100 points to win a singular, overall game.
And we played a ridiculous amount of games!
And my son cheats!
And you’ll have to buy the book to find out the extent of his cheating!
Away from the card playing shenanigans of my son, I cover a historic Ashes series for both the men’s and women’s games (I adore watching women’s cricket or ladies cricket as I prefer to term it) but with chapter titles such as:
“Message in a Bottle from a Crazy World”
“Canal. Cinema. Curry and the Cricket”
“Guns and Roses and Memories and Patience”
“A lion on a bridge and Sunday Night Baseball”
“Indiana Jones and a Quest for the Ashes”
“Pyjama cricket through a Black Mirror”
“Fish and Chips on the Riverbank”
“Heather Knight and an Impossible Mission”
“Giants and Metalheads, Baseball and Ashes despair”
“Seagulls and Church Bells and Test Match Special”
“Rain, Rain, Go Away. Come Again Another Day?”
I hope this gives you a flavour for the varying topics and tangential lines I draw away from the cricket itself as I endeavour to paint a picture (again away from the actual cricket) of a Summer spent walking the canals and waterways of central England or the River Severn at beautiful Ironbridge and a World Heritage status site, a brief diversion to the Glastonbury festival, watching “America’s Pastime” on the banks of an English river and numerous trips to my local cinema to see “Asteroid City”, “Oppenheimer”, “Indiana Jones” and “Mission Impossible” among many, many more.
With an appetite hopefully duly whetted, here’s the blurb from the reverse cover:
“When not losing at cards to my son, visiting a “toytown” on the banks of the River Severn or cheering on my football team as they vanquish all before them, you’ll find this Test Match cricket fanatic watching and writing about the grandest of all games and a sporting love that forever enchants me”
“What does the “Spirit of Cricket” mean to you?”
“One of the many, many enchanting reasons for my love of Test Match cricket lies within that simple question and the beautiful answers you’re already conjuring within your own sporting mind. A crowd of over 21,000 at the “Home of Cricket” for a ladies Ashes match or the near sell-out crowds at every one of their seven matches this Summer sings “Spirit of Cricket” to me, as does walking around the boundary rope at my local club on a rainy Saturday afternoon, sheep grazing in an adjacent field as an elderly sheep dog snores away the day beneath the scorer’s table”.
I tried, but not overly so, to get this published via a traditional publisher, but without any form of representation, track record or an Agent, I knew I stood very little chance and so I took the great leap forward and decided to “publish and be damned” lest it sit forever inside the tiny confines of my mind or just an unrealised pipe dream.
As a way of self-promoting both of these books and all four I have self-published to date, I decided in the Summer of 2023 to create my very first Youtube channel “The Blackford Book Club” and so following you’ll find a selection of videos of your humble narrator, author and self-publisher reading extracts and chapters from this particular book and, as you’ll quickly realise, these were recorded either in the lounge, the garden or even perched precariously on the end of a rickety old “fishing peg” on the banks of the River Severn here in middle England and with the incredible backdrop of Ironbridge, the world’s oldest iron bridge and World Heritage accredited site.
If you’re not a fan of Youtube, all of these videos and many more can also be found within my Rumble Channel under the same “The Blackford Book Club” name. So here follows a selection of videos, a couple of promotional images and a link to www.amazon.com where you can not only purchase my pride and joy but also read it for FREE should you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” package.
As an independent writer, all support is gratefully received and I thank you for reading.
"The Spirit of Cricket" Link - Available via Amazon
"Ashes debrief and final cricket ramble of the Summer" - Youtube
"Rain ruins everyone's fun at The Oval" - Youtube
"Ashes Summer Musings Vol.1" - Youtube
"Ashes ends with the storybook finish it deserved" - Youtube
"Aussies take charge after day 1 in London" - Youtube
Thanks for reading.