A beamer in Middlesex was someone who flashed his teeth in a broad smile. In Yorkshire, it was a delivery designed to ensure that you had no teeth left to smile with. Cricket’s north-south divide comes to life via a unique collection of fresh, entertaining stories gathered over nearly 50 years by a Manchester-based ‘cockney’.
Those who feature range from amateurs who couldn’t bat an eyelid or catch someone’s name to dozens of big names, including 3 captains of England.
Most cricket followers concede that a Surrey-bred, mediocre pie chucker with an Oxbridge degree and 4 initials is traditionally more likely to be selected for England before any world class seamer from north of Luton. Few, however, until now, would be able to fully appreciate the chasm between a sociable ‘friendly’ in rural Berkshire and going to war in League cricket on either side of the Pennines.
The odds on the largely talentless, often pulseless, Old Quintinians ever winning were on a par with producing quadruplets at 600,000-1. Those on emerging unscathed when being as well protected as a soft-backed turtle after skirmishes with the fearsome Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Roy Gilchrist and Andy Roberts were similar.
In a Different League presents any relevant cricketing trivia light-heartedly. All this and much more is designed to make it obvious why the first pain-protecting pads were produced in Oxford whereas the first pain-inflicting composition cricket ball was patented in Rochdale.
