Sport and Sportsmen
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Sport and Sportsmen’
Leigh Hunt reflects on the civilising effect of the game of cricket.
Essayist Leigh Hunt was a cricket-lover, and panegyrics on the game and its health-giving properties pepper his writing. He was also of the opinion that those whose got out to play the game gained an appreciation for the countryside and a perspective on the world denied to many others.
A sportsman and an officer lays a wager that he can make a trigger-happy Irishman go barefoot in public.
It is a familiar scene: the legendary gunslinger in the saloon, the young upstart ragging on him, and a table of fellow-gamblers urging the reckless boy to think better of it. In this case however, it all took place in a coffee-house in Georgian London, and the upstart was a middle-order batsman for the MCC.
Meriel Talbot’s distinguished career in government came as no surprise to those who had seen her at the wicket.
As a young woman, composer Ethel Smyth played cricket for a ladies’ team in Kent, the White Heather Club. The club’s leading light was the future Dame Meriel Talbot, who would soon play a key government role in the Commonwealth and the Great War. Though still in her early twenties, Meriel’s demeanour on and off the pitch showed she was destined for greatness.
Douglas Jardine came up with a plan to deprive the watching public of one of the finest sights in all sport.
The ‘Bodyline’ Test series between Australia and England in 1932-33 remains one of the most controversial moments in cricketing history. It all stemmed from the almost freakish genius of Don Bradman, who to this day remains far and away the best batsman the game has ever seen, but England captain Douglas Jardine was determined to see as little of him as possible.
A fierce Victorian rivalry sprang up between two football teams from the industrial heartlands of the North East.
Sunderland AFC is a team in the English Football League with a proud history, six times champions of the top flight and twice winners of the FA Cup. Their first trophy, Football League Champions, came in 1892, but in those days they were not the only league side from the busy industrial town on the Wear.
In 1837 William Sterndale Bennett, then regarded as England’s most exciting young composer, made history in quite another... field.
German club cricket began in 1858, courtesy of British and American expatriates living in Berlin. But there is a much earlier game on record, played in Leipzig on June 10th, 1837. One of the participants was William Sterndale Bennett, a young and promising composer, and inevitably perhaps, a Yorkshireman.