Cricket's Historians

234 A Rival for The Cricketer took over the research from Robert Brooke, and by 2008 the whole period from 1801 to 1914 had been completed. Major 18 th century scores were published in 2010, edited by John Bryant and incorporating a good deal of new information unearthed by Keith Warsop and Martin Wilson. With the demise of Cricket News , Robert Brooke moved to The Cricketer and beginning in October 1979 created a column ‘Milestones’. which each month dealt with a topical statistical item and put it in its historical context. It was destined to run for over 25 years and be ‘spun off ’ in book form. It might be assumed that Brooke’s column was a response to ‘For The Record’, Derek Lodge’s Wisden Cricket Monthly column (see Chapter 15). 1979 not only saw the breaking of The Cricketer monopoly, it also saw a rival to the WisdenAlmanack . The last attempt at a comprehensive hardback cricket annual to vie with the venerable Wisden had been Dewar’s in 1892. The new title was Pelham Cricket Year and it surprised the cricketing public by being in the bookshops before Christmas 1979, yet covering the 1979 English season in great detail. The price was £5.75 as against Wisden at £6.75. The English first-class season was treated chronologically with a report on matches played in a three day period, followed by the potted scores, except for Tests, when the full score was printed. A similar layout was used for the county one-dayers. Every player’s record was given with innings, or bowling analysis in chronological order and then the columns totalled up and balanced with extras to the team total. The same treatment was given to the Australian and New Zealand domestic seasons, but the remaining countries were confined to internationals, except the 1978-79 England tour to Australia which is published in detail. The editor of this volume was David Lemmon. A teacher of English, he decided to abandon his profession three years after Pelham Cricket Year was established and take the risky option of earning a living by writing cricket books – as a full-time occupation, with no other income, it was an option that no other cricket-minded person had tried, or if they had then they had failed. (Lemmon did write a book or two on theatrical subjects, but the great majority of his post-teaching career was in hardback cricket