New Cricket Writing Group

Posted by Dave Walker

I am Dave Walker and my hobby is writing. I also enjoy watching, playing (not so much now), and talking sense and nonsense about cricket. In 2005 I had the privilege of editing a history of a local friendly cricket team, the Almondbury Casuals. Some of the material for the book came from match reports which two or three of us have been writing since 2002. The cricket writing genre has since become a keen interest.

At the recent annual cricket heritage conference, held at the university, I asked if anyone was interested in cricket. Five were! We are now in the process of setting up communications, but to what purpose you might ask?

- Explore the genre. Our favourites. What’s good, what’s not so good.
- The serious and the humorous.
- Share our writing with each other. Support. Fresh ideas. Suggestions for improvement.
- Think, plan and publish an anthology.

My writing is not worthy or stylish. Cardus and James are not where I am. I’m not keen either on simply recording events and statistics, though they have their place. I try to surprise myself, and hopefully my readers. A quirky, alternate view of the mundane everyday things and cricket is brilliant for this. Whilst cricket writing is competitive, there is no reason why it can’t be enjoyable as well.

I hope the group will meet occasionally in person, in a pub perhaps, rather than a lecture hall. Otherwise it will be cyberspace. Much of the genre has been written by journalists. Why not incorporate journalism somewhere within the group? Are there any other budding cricket writers out there?

My contact information is as follows:
e-mail: dawalker@doctors.org.uk
tel: 01484683196