People say you should never meet your heroes, but that’s only true if your heroes are idiots. I am so grateful to the 11 fascinating, funny, patient and thoughtful men who agreed to meet me to talk about their England days. Thank you also to team physio Dave Roberts for the stories he shared. I’m especially indebted to Mike Atherton – if it wasn’t for him, I would never have written this book at all. Of course, he may have preferred it that way.
Here are some of my other heroes. Rob Biddulph: you pushed me to come up with this idea, you nagged me to get an agent, you spent a year listening to me whinge about how hard writing is. Oh, and you designed the book cover too. You really have to stop being such a nice guy. (Thank you very much for being my friend.)
Other friends have also gone above and beyond the call of duty. Philip Cornwall, you have saved me from so many a factual error in my life, thanks for minesweeping once again. Nick Coleman, I turned up on your doorstep, and you found yourself mentoring a first-time author. You were brilliant at it and I’m very grateful.
Charlotte, my editor at Bloomsbury, and Stan, my agent at Jenny Brown Associates, know that this book wouldn’t have happened without them. I’m also grateful to Giles Clarke for helping put me in touch with players and to Ruaridh Nicoll for being a pretty understanding boss. Others don’t know the contribution they’ve made: Rob Moody, whose YouTube channel robelinda2 is a geek’s delight and has been invaluable in prodding my memory, and the Guardian’s sports writers, whose wit and warmth regularly inspire me.
Rob Smyth, Steven Lynch, Travis Basevi are statistical geniuses and kind, generous men who I am lucky to know. Ed Cumming is a very funny writer who will sulk if I don’t tell people that he came up with the title for this book. Eva Wiseman read and advised on passages even though she hates cricket. Andy Bull and Lawrence Booth gave calm encouragement, Ben Horslen complemented it with rousing rhetoric, and Alex Davison completed the job by taking me out, getting me drunk, and making me believe I could do anything.
Matthew Hancock is my sports editor at the Observer and this book is the first thing I’ve written in a decade I’ve not forced him to edit. It only exists because he helped me find my voice. I must also thank Stephen Fay and John Stern for teaching me to write about cricket and Tim Lewis for modelling how to be a real editor, writer, and grown-up.
I’ve always known I’m lucky in my friends, but in the course of writing this book I have been overwhelmed by their support. I’m grateful to many people at KXC – to Hub, to the Eagles – who have looked out for me, cooked for me, prayed for me. Thanks to the Shoulers and to Cathy Aizlewood for providing me with escapes when I needed somewhere quiet to write.
When I was going back through old boxes of keepsakes from my student years I found a short note in my dad’s handwriting that he had sent alongside a cheque, for whatever sum I had managed to talk out of him. It said, ‘Love also enclosed’. Mum, Dad, Kate, Justin, I hope you enjoy the contents of these pages. Love also enclosed.