The book starts in 1825, but it moves through the years to 1970 with some speed, highlighting the most interesting stories, before settling to a fuller portrait of the club during its past fifty years. These are years in which Lansdown Cricket Club has had to face fresh challenges. It has enjoyed moments of great glory, winning the Western League three times in the 1980s and 1990s, and it has suffered in the early years of the 21st century, as in the early years of the 20th, a period when it lost some of its quintessential identity.

This book to tell that story.

We will read of the great Viv Richards playing for Lansdown as a stepping stone towards international greatness, just as WG Grace had done many years before. We will read of celebrity matches at Combe Park, with the great names of the day on display as they had been at Sydenham Field in Victorian times. There will be days of joyous success and of abject failure, as is the lot of all cricket teams. There will be times when the club has afforded great improvements to its facilities and times when it has come perilously close to bankruptcy.
When Donald Bradfield completed his manuscript in 1970, there was no league cricket. That came soon enough, and with it an over-limit game that put greater emphasis on the winning and losing. Then, at the end of the century, came a pyramid league structure, with promotion and relegation, and for some years Lansdown fell far below its accustomed position among the top clubs in the West. Happily it has found its way back to the top tier, allowing this book to end with fresh hope and pride.

About Stephen Chalke

Stephen Chalke, who is editor and co-author of this book, has written and published several highly-acclaimed biographical and historical cricket books. He has won five awards (all for different books):

The Cricket Society Book of the Year
The Best Cricket Book category in the British Sports Books Awards
The Cricket Writers’ Club’s Book of the Year
The Wisden Book of the Year (twice)

In an article in the 2010 edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanac he is identified as "an author, publisher and captain of the Winsley Third XI”. He lives in Bath.

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