Frith Finishes Marathon Spell As Racial Dispute Takes Toll (26 Feb 1996)

Electronic Telegraph Monday 26 February 1996

Frith finishes marathon spell as racial dispute takes toll

By Giles Smith

This report appeared in Saturday`s edition of The Daily Telegraph

THIS week, David Frith packed off to the printers the March issue of Wisden`s Cricket Monthly, his 202nd issue as editor and his last. After 17 years at the magazine and now approaching 60, Frith has decided to retire. "I need a good rest," he told me, when I visited him at home in Guildford last week. "I`m at the point of exhaustion."

In his editorial for the January issue, the magazine`s 200th, Frith listed some of the tricky matters which have spun his way since the launch in 1979: aluminium bats, helmets, assaults on players by spectators, assaults on players by players, streakers, bouncers, pot-smoking allegations . . .

Significantly absent from his list, though, was any reference to last summer`s libel rumpus - certainly the biggest controversy the magazine has ever faced, one in which the editor`s chair on a faintly cosy, low-budget, small-circulation cricket monthly burst abruptly into flames.

In its July 1995 issue, WCM published an article entitled "Is it in the blood?". The article itself was by Robert Henderson and questioned the commitment of players of foreign origin to the England team. Athough the magazine carried its usual disclaimer that "views in WCM do not necessarily always correspond with those of the editor or his board", there was massive outrage. The Cricketers` Association condemned the article as abhorrent. Phillip DeFreitas and Devon Malcolm issued writs for defamation (Malcolm accepted libel damages in the High Court in October and DeFreitas settled outside). Frith suddenly found himself on radio phone-ins trying to argue his corner.

Frith, who has a dry Australian accent and is quietly spoken but forthright, is still clearly sore about what happened. In particular, he claims the story was "grossly misrepresented" in the press by "people who even now have not read the original article". But, in any case, he dissociates himself from its views. He has grown tired, too, of the confusion in which he emerges as the person who wrote the article, rather than edited it.

"All this editor was doing," he says, "was exercising what he thought was a platform for free speech on a subject that fascinated me very deeply indeed, because of my bi-nationality." (Frith was born in London, but moved to Sydney aged 11 and only returned to England in 1964 when he was 28 and married with three children.) "The view that West Indian or Australasian-born cricketers would not give their all to England struck me as absurd, but that view was out there and I thought it should be heard."

Of course, there`s nothing like a controversy for shifting a few magazines. "If anyone thinks circulation doubled over the next three months, they`re badly mistaken. I was incensed when people said it was trumped up to develop readership." Just prior to publication, he had contacted the press to tip them off that he would be running a letter from Don Bradman. "That`s what I thought was going to be the highlight of the July issue."

When the Ashes replica came up, Watts nudged Frith and told him to keep bidding. "And then, when the hammer came down, he leant over and said

His error, one might say, was naivety and he has paid a price for it. Frith concedes that he might not feel quite so tired at this point in his life if he had not endured those months of uproar. "It was hardly rejuvenating for me."

UP until then, the only spat WCM had found itself in, outside its own letters page, was when Surrey banned a 1987 issue from the bookstalls at the Oval, because of the frontpage headline "Bloodshed at Birmingham", referring to crowd trouble at the Texaco International between England and Pakistan.

This, and all Frith`s other editions of WCM, are filed in his library. Frith has more books on cricket than most libraries have books. He keeps these in a room off the sitting-room, dedicated to cricket and containing cabinets stuffed with rare and pricey cricket memorabilia.

The collection is what you might call detailed. This is, after all, the man who saw fit to keep the wrapping from one of John Arlott`s cigars. He has Michael Atherton`s pale blue school cricket cap, with Atherton`s signature on the inside label. Neatly labelled in a display case is a shard from a polycarbonate face-shield shattered by Jeff Thomson`s bowling in November 1978. There`s a shirt belonging to Border and a yellow headband (unwashed) belonging to Lillee. Frith also owns Stuart Surridge`s lighter, Sir Neville Cardus`s last passport and, stationed on top of a bookcase, a lump from the Oval wall. Arlott told Frith his collection was "uncritical". Frith took this as an enormous compliment.

The replica of the urn containing the Ashes, Frith tells me, was a present from Charlie Watts, the drummer with the Rolling Stones. Like Frith, Watts is a collector and Frith will occasionally go with him to auctions and bid on his behalf. When the Ashes replica came up, Watts nudged Frith and told him to keep bidding. "And then, when the hammer came down, he leant over and said `That`s for you.` "

Frith makes, perhaps, an unlikely consort for international rock stars, but he did once take Watts and Mick Jagger into the press box at Lord`s. Someone who objected to their presence asked a steward to remove them. Watts went quietly, apparently; Jagger less so. "Mick Jagger," as Frith reasonably points out, "is not used to being asked to leave places."

In retirement, Frith says, he has plans to update some of the 20 books he has written about cricket. These range from detailed studies of bowlers and bowling, to a sizeable treatise on cricketing suicides. "I`m interested in other things than cricket, you know," he said, but I`m not sure I believed him.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http.//www.telegraph.co.uk)