Before the Lights Went Out: The 1912 Triangular Tournament - Hardcover

Ferriday, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0956732100 ISBN 13: 9780956732101

Publisher: Von Krumm Publishing, 2010

Synopsis

The 1912 Triangular Tournament was the culmination of the work of cricketers in three continents over half a century. The county game in England, the `inter-colonials' in Australia and the cricket-loving Randlords in South Africa all led to international competition which then took on a life of its own. As cricket adopted an increasingly business-like nature, fortunes were made and lost during the last decades of Victoria's reign and by the time the new century dawned the game had reached a level of organisation and professionalism undreamt of only three decades earlier. The vast wealth and influence of South African businessman Abe Bailey enabled him to indulge his ambition of bringing the three test-playing nations together. The summer of 1912 would show how far the game had come....

About this title

From the Back Cover

On New Year's Day 1912, the Times published a rallying editorial which highlighted the possibility that Britain might by the end of the year `have been wiped out of politics altogether and have become dependent on the will of others'. Against this background of fear and pessimism, that summer would see the first great world championship of cricket - the Triangular Tournament.

Australia and South Africa should bring their finest men to England for a sporting festival that would simultaneously entertain and cement the ties of Empire in preparation for the greater tests that would inevitably follow. They arrived in a country recovering from a devastating miner's strike and shocked to the core by the sinking of the Titanic.

But there was cricket to be played. Each of the national sides would play one another three times; a total of nine Tests. In addition the visiting sides would travel to all corners in completing 37 matches in just over four months - this punishing schedule would leave its mark. When the two sides eventually returned home there were serious questions to answer.

From the Inside Flap

`On the cricket grounds of the Empire is fostered the spirit of never knowing when you are beaten, of playing for your side and not yourself, and of never giving up a game as lost. This is as invaluable in Imperial matters as in cricket.'
- Lord Hawke

`They say sport and politics don't mix, which is rubbish. It's like saying you don't need oxygen to breathe. You can't have one without the other on this earth. I think people who want to keep politics out of sport are a bit simple.'
- Brian Clough

`Other Colonies will be as deeply interested in the matches as those most immediately concerned, and if the strengthening of the bonds of Union within the Empire is one of the many outcomes of the great Tournament, I am hopeful that contemporary cricketers, and those who figure in Empire cricket in years to come, will agree that the Triangular Tests of 1912 were not held in vain.'
- Sir Abe Bailey

Edition details

• Publisher: Von Krumm Publishing
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0956732100
• ISBN 13: 9780956732101
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 350