Books
After my first season reporting cricket, I was very keen to write a John Arlott-style book about the cricket season. I contacted various publishers. They were polite, often bought me drinks but did not take to the idea. Then one publisher told me: “Cricket books like that don’t sell. Why don’t you write a book about a great cricketer.” He commissioned me to write a book about Keith Miller, the great Australian all-rounder. I received £400 as an advance back in 1975 and the book was finally published by another publisher. By then I had met many more publishers, had many more drinks in pubs and discussed lots of ideas. They led to more books on cricket, football, business, biography and history, even a history of Bollywood. Often I would approach a publisher with an idea and end up writing a totally different book, such as my account of the stock market crash for Bloomsbury.
My latest book The Spirit of the Game was published on 19 January 2012.
The spirit of the game was first nurtured on the playing fields of the English public school and this Corinthian spirit was then exported around the world. Today, sport is dominated by corruption, money and celebrity. Yet, we still believe and talk about the game as if it had a higher moral purpose.
The Spirit of the Game tells the story of how Sport has lost its original spirit and how it emerged in the 20th century as the most powerful political tool in the world.
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