Cricket's Historians

Rowland Bowen causes Ripples only and then had two much larger annuals (usually 96 pages as against 36) – in November and March-April. The old magazine was still issued from Langford’s home address – it looked cottagey and was. The annual subscription was 25 shillings; the Playfair cost 28 shillings. Gordon Ross commissioned John Arlott for the Test Match reports and Neville Cardus as a features writer. The Cricketer used W.E.Bowes, the former England fast bowler, to describe the Tests and in 1960 was serialising Henry Grierson’s ‘History of the Forty Club’. The Cricketer continued its extensive coverage of Public Schools cricket, London Club cricket and the major Northern Leagues, whilst the new magazine was very much centred on Tests and County cricket, though initially it did give some space to cricket at a lower level. In the winter issues the Playfair published full scores of many overseas first-class matches – the influence of Roy Webber clearly showing through. The Cricketer , with only its two annuals during the winter months, concentrated on England teams touring overseas and more general articles. It took The Cricketer three seasons to realise that it was losing ground to its new rival. On September 1, 1962 the magazine carried a full page declaration, which opened with: ‘The Cricketer – An Important Announcement From its next issue (on sale November 15) The Cricketer will appear in a greatly enlarged and improved form. Expanded, The Cricketer will contain fascinating new features that will appeal to all lovers of the game, whether they be players or spectators. There will be many more pictures too.’ The new format had John Warner as Managing Editor, Peter Morris as Editor; Club Cricket Editor was Arthur Langford and Tom Ward the Advertisement Manager – the last named produced 19 full pages of adverts out of a total of 64, a vast increase, which no doubt improved the finances. The new editor did not survive, Langford resumed his old post, but the more powerful figure behind the scenes was E.W.Swanton, who was Chairman of the ‘Editorial Board’, which in 1964 became the 177