Footprints

David Foot’s Lifetime of Writing

Each week we spotlight a fascinating title from the vast collection catalogued in the Cricket Bibliography project, drawing on insightful (but not necessarily positive!) reviews from the archives of our journal. Today we bring you Footprints: David Foot’s Lifetime of Writing (2023) by Stephen Chalke and Scyld Berry, reviewed by Richard Lawrence.

One of the finest cricket writers of the last generation, David Foot left behind him a range of excellent books including Cricket’s Unholy Trinity, Fragments of Idolatry and Beyond Bat and Ball. But he was also a first-rate journalist in the wider world, who could turn his hand to a range of subjects. In this collection of writings, Stephen Chalke, who published several of his last books, has gathered material from throughout Foot’s career, even extending to some of his juvenilia, along with an accompanying narrative that makes the book double up as a kind of biography.

Readers should be aware that this is not strictly speaking a cricket book. While Foot is best remembered as a cricket writer, this collection covers all sorts of subjects, from local history (an enjoyable early account of a local legend of a church bell tower springs to mind) to football (reporting of an important fixture from a position in the public convenience is a reminder that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction). The range serves only to underline his excellence in his craft.

But there is lots of cricket here too. While some of the material included here has previously been published in book form, there are many articles that previously had appeared only in the press, from the very earliest days as a reporter in the 1940s. Of these many articles and extracts, none is more exemplary of his wisdom and open-mindedness than a report from an early T20 match in 2003, in which he describes the game, not without affection, as a ‘high-spirited bastard offshoot’ of cricket.

I could, I suppose, have made the job of reviewing this collection a little easier by skipping the non-cricket sections. But in doing so I would have deprived myself of much enjoyment, as well as an appreciation of the extent of Foot’s gifts as a writer. Some readers may object that as this is not really a cricket book, it should not be the leading item in this journal’s review section. I admit that I gave the matter some thought. In the end, however, the excellence of this collection won me over. I only hope others enjoy it as much as I have.