On a hot morning in July 1898, the sporting world gathered at
Lord's to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of WG Grace, the greatest
cricketer the game has ever seen. Grace was cheered onto the field
by a packed crowd as he captained the Gentlemen, the privileged old
guard of the Establishment. Their opponents in this annual match
were the Players, cricketers for whom the sport was a precarious
livelihood rather than a summer pastime. This three-day encounter
represented the climax of cricket's Golden Age, and the unstoppable
arrival of the professional game that would dominate the twentieth
century.
In "WG's Birthday Party," David Kynaston tells the story of one
of the most thrilling matches in cricketing history, as well as the
colourful and sometimes tragically moving lives of the members of
both teams. Using the Gentlemen vs Players contest as a lens
through which to examine the hierarchy and tensions endemic in
cricket at the beginning of the modern era, he presents a lively,
moving, richly detailed and massively entertaining portrait of
late-Victorian society. It is social history at its most
compelling, from 'the most entertaining historian alive'
("Spectator").
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