Cricket's Historians

A Spate of County Histories Defence and Foreign Affairs Correspondent and at the time of writing this book he was a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The Somerset history is by the county captain Peter Roebuck. Like the Sussex book it is an ‘Official History’, but unlike Lee, Roebuck doesn’t dwell on the pre-county club period of Somerset cricket. In fact pre-l850 cricket in the county is a subject that is dire need of exploration. The book is published to celebrate 100 years of first-class cricket (a point that rather jars with many historians). Hodgson’s Yorkshire tome – The Official History of Yorkshire CCC - is certainly more readable than Woodhouse’s Yorkshire, the latter being strictly solid fact, no opinions or flights of fancy permitted. The establishment of The Cricketer Quarterly (in 1973) was noted in Chapter 14. Frindall assumed the editorship due to the death of Gordon Ross in 1985. The statistical team changed quite frequently over the years. A.H.Wagg died in 1980 and was replaced by Brian Heald. The latter was born in Hull in September 1938 and educated at Bridlington School. He was employed as a civil servant with HM Customs & Excise. Elected to the ACS Committee in 1988 he took over from John Stockwell as editor of the ACS Statistical Survey series. He was also heavily involved in the statistical side of the Essex Yearbook. He continued with The Cricketer Quarterly until 1988. Another statistician who assisted with the Statistical Surveys and indeed produced most of the actual statistical data was Don Ambrose, a bank manager from Lancashire. Ambrose built up a fine collection of cricket annuals and culled much information from them, especially checking league yearbooks, a source not generally tapped. He died in 2010. Brian Croudy was added to The Cricketer Quarterly team in 1982 on the death of Michael Fordham. Born in Balham in December 1936 and educated at Salesian College, Battersea, Brian Albert Charles Croudy was elected to the ACS Committee in 1975 and specialised in overseas cricket, mainly New Zealand, India and North America. Starting in 1982 he took over from Geoffrey Copinger as the compiler of the first-class averages for the Press Association – the averages which appeared once or 265