Review

Life of Cardus

One of its four forewords is written by Andrew Flintoff. That oddity apart, the book is exhaustive in covering the life and work of the man who changed cricket writing

Steven Lynch
Steven Lynch
01-Aug-2010
Palantine Books

Palantine Books

It is over 35 years now since the death of Sir Neville Cardus, the man who changed the way cricket was reported. Gently prodded by sympathetic editors and colleagues, Cardus left behind the slavish recording of minutes batted and balls faced, and wrote about the players' personalities instead. And he did so with an enviable lightness of touch.
Cardus' Lancashire favourites sprang to life off the pages of the Manchester Guardian, the newspaper that had the foresight to make him their cricket correspondent in 1920, only three years after he had walked into the reporters' room. There was Archie MacLaren, "the noblest Roman of them all", Johnny Tyldesley, "a d'Artagnan wickedly wielding his sword of a bat", and Walter Brearley, "a fast bowler who blew a perpetual, stump-uprooting gale". And Cardus had a soft spot for Australians, too, especially Ted McDonald, one of county cricket's first overseas players: "He bowled at a hair-raising pace, endangering thorax, breastbone and cranium, but the onslaught was easy, effortless, silent."
Since Cardus was also a superb critic of classical music, it would be easy to imagine him having enjoyed a pampered upbringing, moving effortlessly from public school to university and floating lazily down the Cam as a student. But nothing could be further from the truth: the only punters involved in the young Cardus' life were the ones for whom his mother and favourite aunt turned tricks as prostitutes. Cardus never knew his father, and left school at 13. He was largely self-taught and largely brilliant.
Robin Daniels, who befriended Cardus in his later years and edited a previous book called Conversations with Cardus, has assembled a fitting tribute to the multi-talented man who emerged from that unpromising beginning. It is a weighty tome, which starts with no fewer than four forewords - the most surprising being from Andrew Flintoff, who it is hard to imagine devouring Cardus' Summer Days during rain breaks - and discursive chapters on the various aspects of Cardus' life, with copious quotes and footnotes. Just occasionally this makes it rather difficult to follow: for example we read of "Langford" helping Cardus on page 53, and wonder idly who he might be... we have to wait until page 80 for a whole chapter on Samuel Langford, the larger-than-life music critic on the Manchester Guardian who was a mentor to Cardus when he started. But these are minor quibbles about a splendidly produced book, a fitting monument to the man John Arlott called "the father of literate sports writing".
Cardus: Celebrant of Beauty
by Robin Daniels
Palantine Books
480pp; £25

Steven Lynch is the editor of the Cricinfo Guide to International Cricket.