The Country House Cricketer - Pete Langman
In 2012, writer, cricketer and Parkinson’s sufferer Pete Langman was forced by injury to bat left-handed.
Praise for The Country House Cricketer
"This is one of the best things I’ve ever read about the curious world of non-professional cricket. Beautifully written with both a deft touch and exactly the right amount of detail to satisfy the obsessive without boring the dilettante. Excellent photos add greatly to the enjoyment."
Anthony McGowan, author, Wormsley centurion
"Engaging and beautifully produced. Captures the peculiarly English spirit in which the amateur game is played."
Robert Sackville-West
"The greatest country houses pad up with the greatest game."
Isabelle Duncan, author of Skirting the Boundary
"Who would have thought that village cricket and country piles would make such easy bedfellows? Langman tackles both with the zeal of the academic and the eye of the storyteller. Your coffee table will rarely be better served."
Si White, author of The Effing C-word
"Splendid photographs!"
Timothy McCann, historian of cricket
He decided to turn his season into a fund-raising opportunity, raising almost £3,000 for Parkinson’s UK, while penning a popular column in All Out Cricket in the process.
Playing at Sheffield Park, he realised he was about to walk out to bat where none other than the great W. G. Grace had played the Australians. Having scored a mere one run fewer than the good Doctor did in 1884, he started wondering about other grounds like Sheffield Park, attached to stately homes and full of cricketing history.
A few months later he mentioned, over dinner, the idea of playing cricket at some of the most beautiful grounds in the country, with a view to producing a book of photographs of the great game in classic surroundings, took shape.
More than just a picture book, it would connect past and present, investigate the how and the why, not merely the where. Before the coffee arrived, The Country House Cricketer was born.
The book features 12 grounds, starting at Clumber Park in Notts, and visiting Chiswick, Penshurst Place, Stansted Park, Parham Park, Knole Park, Blenheim Palace, Goodwood, Sheffield Park, Arundel Castle, Audley End and Stourhead, and boasts a foreword by ex-England star Mark Butcher and an introduction by Robert Sackville-West.
With 96 full-colour pages and over 180 photographs, The Country House Cricketer weaves together past and present as it traces the histories of the houses into the story of a day's cricket.
All profits from The Country House Cricketer will help fund research into Parkinson’s through Parkinson’s UK and the Cure Parkinson’s Trust.
