WG Grace Ate My Pedalo | book review

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You, King Cricket reader, will love WG Grace Ate My Pedalo. We are pretty much certain of that.

You may all be very different, but you all have one thing in common – this website. Alan Tyers’ book is not a million miles away from what you might expect to see here.

It is basically a spoof 1896 issue of The Wisden Cricketer, but better than that sounds. Imagine what the Victorians might think of modern cricket – that’s basically the vibe.

Favourite sections are many and include an advertisement for the ‘Indian Territories Pre-eminent League’; 24 hours in the life of the Reverend ML Hayden (“Pray to God for a bit, but this degenerates into a sledging contest”); and a delightfully demented work of sporting fiction about vampires at Lord’s – part bloodsucker drama, part Victorian cricket story.

WG Grace Ate My Pedalo also features our favourite ever use of the word ‘harlot’. Buy it from Amazon. It is, frankly, mint.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

8 comments

  1. Speaking of a ‘harlot’, that’s an excellent cross-sell there KC :p

    I may have to order it in my new years bundle along with the books from James Allen, Jrod and anyone else I can’t get in the shops over here.

  2. Tip top stuff – favourite bits were Nick Knight’s balloon antics and Beards for Batting ad (baffles bowlers and excites women)

  3. As a 14-year-old, I bought this book and didn’t understand it but I had been in the park with a bottle of Miaow Miaow (that’s a drink, “innit”?) ending up vomiting on a girl I was trying to snog before being taken home by my mum.

    My elder brother did seem to understand it and laughed a lot – reading out an advertisment for a quiz show called “Who wants to be a mill-owner?”, a game of knowledge for the “lower classes” or something.

    Wicked.

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