SOMERSET CRICKETERS 1971-2000 Book

This is the fourth volume in the award-winning series outlining the life of each man who has played first-class cricket for Somerset. Appropriately enough for a club with a rich history, bursting at the seams with larger-than-life characters, the first person featured here is that great cricketing eccentric, the late Brian Close, who joined the club in 1971, after falling out with Yorkshire, and set about instilling a winning mentality. At the sametime, Tom Cartwright, already at the club, having previously starred for Warwickshire, was charged with coaching an exciting crop of local youngsters: the likes of Ian Botham, Vic Marks and Peter Roebuck, were melded with two up-and-coming Caribbean stars – Viv Richards and Joel Garner – to form a team of all the talents. Between them, they brought glamour and trophies to a county who had languished in the cricketing doldrums for the best part of a century. The County Ground in Taunton was suddenly a place where one-day opponents were intimidated and where spectators from all walks of life wished to beand to be seen. But then the atmosphere soured as the club slid into civil war. Slowly, Somerset CCC then clawed their way back to a position where, by the end of themillennium, they were once again in serious contention for trophies. The text is complemented throughout with quality images, many of them previously unpublished, and the authors have interviewed the vast majority of the 116 players who feature. The pen portraits are varied andcolourful. The club’s supporters and, indeed,anyone who has read the first three volumes in this series, would expect nothing less. Read More