Seven men and a hundred years of Yorkshire cricket

A book that charts social change through the prism of a century of cricketers is released next month. Nick Ahad reports.
Darren GoughDarren Gough
Darren Gough

It’s one of cricket’s most famous backs-against-the-wall declarations of intent.

August 13, 1902, the dying moments of the Oval Test Match against Australia. Yorkshire’s George Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes are at the crease. It’s not exactly a ‘bumping pitch and a blinding light’ but the conditions were not stacking in England’s favour – Hirst and Rhodes were the last pair and England’s last hope of making the 15 runs needed for victory.

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The pair conferred at midwicket and, the indefatigable Hirst, legend has it, proffered this piece of advice to his batting partnet: “We’ll get ’em in singles.”

What a moment. It provides the starting point for Max Davidson’s brilliant, and brilliantly surprising We’ll Get ’Em In Sequins, published next month in paperback by Bloomsbury.

Davidson’s pun on the phrase reveals immediately a sense of humour that is shot through his book – and a sense of humour that might wrongfoot the potential audience into thinking this is a slight, silly piece of work. While it is very funny in parts – Davidson is quite the comic writer – it is also much more than a comedic book. Part social history, part paean to the summer game, it is entirely entertaining and never less than beautifully written.

It is also a love letter to the greatest cricketing county in Britain and a look at how the waxing and waning of the tides of time have affected the game.

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Taking seven players who represented Yorkshire over the span of a century, Davidson takes us from George Hirst to Michael Vaughan, via Hedley Verity, Fred Trueman, Geoffrey Boycott and Darren Gough – the last of these, the one who went and appeared on a dancing programme, providing the title of the book.

How did we go from a granite-hard Yorkshireman defying the Aussies and making 15 runs before the close of play to beat the old enemy, to a fast bowler at the turn of the 21st century who would run in with an ear-stud glinting in the sun and who hung up his bowling boots, to pull on a pair of shiny shoes in which he danced the paso doble?

The journey of how this happened is the journey of how Britain has changed. It is the story of how men have embraced a side so feminine that Fred Trueman could use his anger at it to light a pipe. It is a story of how the game, and the men who play it, have changed, but it somehow manages to tell us something about the attitude of society to sexual mores and towards sexuality, equality and more besides.

It is a beautifully written book, which cricket fans will salivate over, and social history fans will adore.

Cricketers who reflect society

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The cricketers Davidson charts the changes with are evocative. Taking a chapter to reflect on how different each was and how that reflected society, he looks at George Hirst, Herbert Sutcliffe, Hedley Verity, Fred Trueman, Geoffrey Boycott, Darren Gough and Michael Vaughan. 
Published by Bloomsbury, April 11, £9.99.