I have a plan. I had thought about doing a similar diary to 546 Runs Were Enough during the upcoming England-South Africa series and now I am committed to going for it.
Buoyed by the feedback I’ve received for Return To The Crease, I hope I can improve with each book I publish…
@jspennington It had some very familiar moments after having watched @keithtimms play club cricket for many years 🙂
— Catherine (@frinster) May 8, 2012
@jspennington just read Return to the Crease, good to know amateur cricket is the same all over!! Keep it up John (writing, not cricket!)
— Matthew Bowden (@bodwen) May 9, 2012
As in 546 Runs Were Enough my basic premise of the entire book is that the 2009 Ashes series is where England began their rise to number one, it would make perfect sense to write about the England-South Africa series which could see England’s journey end.
I know I won’t be the only journalist writing about the series but I’d bet good money that I’m one of the first to get a book to market.
Realistically, seeing as the England-South Africa series starts in July, it means I need to press on with the hockey book to give me enough time to check it over, proof it and do the rest. I do like a challenge!
Here’s a taster for you, taken from the end of the introduction:
Yet we plugged on. We took nine players to Kettering once and had to start with eight as they refused to provide an umpire. Somehow, Henry Young gave us the lead. We took eight to Market Harborough, nine to Leicester University but fought doggedly before eventually succumbing.
For us, our target at the start of the season was to avoid conceding 100 goals. We never managed it. We would look forward to matches against new teams that we thought might be at our level, only to produce limp performances and unexpectedly lose.
We had a captain not turn up for an away game at Buxton. I saw our goalkeeper break his ankle right in front of me. I played in a collared shirt with one good leg to fill a gap. We put two friends of a fellow player off hockey for life by fielding them after turning up short of a full complement of players. Higgs crashed his car on the way to a match, resulting in me starting my Grantham career on the left wing.
This is the story of how Grantham went from bottom of the pile to making local headlines and even (allegedly) appearing in the News of the World.