Fatty Batter: How Cricket Saved My Life (Then Ruined It)

There is a general rule that I subscribe to with regard to sports books. The better the subject at their given sport the less interesting the read. There are of course exceptions that prove this theory, but gladly this book isn't one of them, due to the fact that Simkins is obviously very average at cricket. The book can broadly be broken into two sections, his time at school growing up and discovering cricket and his time as the secretary/manager of a casual sunday team. I enjoyed the first half, due mainly to brilliantly drawn observation which brought back memories of my own childhood and my own struggles in attempting to break into cricket teams filled with better looking, more talented and better equiped individuals who i both admired and hated in equal measure. The second half is just funny because sunday cricketers are just funny.

At the time i was reading this book my partner was revising for an upcoming job interview and on more than one occasion i was ejected from the room for constant giggling and occasion peels of laughter. I defy anyone with a passing interest in cricket not to laugh out loud when Simkins describes his repeated attempts to bowl at a professional at a Sussex coaching session during his youth.

If you enjoyed Marcus Berkmann's books Rain Men and Zimmer Men i would direct you to this because the tone and style is very similar and equally as enjoyable.

A wonderful Insight (1/1 people found this helpful)

One of the best autobiographies I have read for some time, let alone one devoted to cricket. This book is written in a wonderfully quirky style, extremely humorous to the extent that you are driven to read out extracts to whoever is around you at the time. There's even an element of mystery about some of the chapters as they rarely (especially in the last half) pick up from the previous one and it can take a while before the theme sets in. The anecdotes ranged from the hilarious to being quite moving, but without being sentimental as well, which is quite a feat. You don't need to like cricket to enjoy this, but for those of you who play regularly at Mr Simkins' level, or for the thousands of us who are probably much more mediocre, or those who simply stay indoors, watching a Test on a lovely sunny day from 11.00 am till tea-time and don't give a second thought to where the day has gone, you will identify with just about every chapter in the book

A good read (1/1 people found this helpful)

This is the book for every aspiring "test player" who never got beyond the 2nd eleven - as the last resort "reserve player". Superbly written, both with expert knowledge of the genre and hilariously funny as well.

Funny and endearing cricketing reminiscences,s (2/3 people found this helpful)

Fatty Batter is another of those books written by people with a deep love of cricket but no real ability to play the game. None the less they spend every spare waking weekend moment playing at a level that could be described as enthusiastic but amateurish . And when they're not doing that they are either watching cricket, talking about cricket or busy organising games or events based around cricket.
Michael Simkins is an actor( He has also written a book on acting) and the book eloquently describes how , as a child of portly girth , he became fixated with cricket after watching Colin Milburn( He too was rather rotund ) on TV hit a lusty seventy odd for England against the West Indies. Heartily encouraged by his father his obsession grew through games of dice cricket and finally seeing live games at Sussex.
The book describes his fluctuating affair with the sport culminating in him forming a team -"The Harry Baldwin's"(Named after a picture of a fat Victorian cricketer Simkins came across) who ply their trade against other amateur teams. This leads to various anecdotes about village green cricket that have been covered exhaustitively in numerous other books. That said , Simkins avoids the smug middle class revel in our wackiness and incompetence tone of most of those books instead relating tales of the relationship strife caused by his commitment to the team, the struggle to raise eleven fully functioning players half the time and how one game saw one of the players picked up by Kate Winslett.
Fatty Batter is about more than that though. Its an eruditely and wittily written account of childhood, a paean to how sport can give someone focus and belief (And at the same time can also become a stifling obsession) and a tacit admission that there will eventually come a time to stop. And it does contain some cracking stories with the one about his trip to the members area of Lords being especially memorable. All in all it's one of the betters efforts on cricket outside the heady glamour of the professional game( Though reading this you quickly realise if you didn't already know , that first class cricket is rarely glamorous) though I was once again left with the feeling that the definitive "Fever Pitch" of cricket remains to be written.

A book that deserves to be at the top of the batting averages (3/3 people found this helpful)

Although this is a book about cricket I would use a football term to sum it up - a book of two halves.
The first part of the book, about the authors childhood as the son of a Brighton shopkeeper is wonderful and is one of the best pieces of writing about childhood that I have ever read. The descriptions of life in the sixties is very evocative of the times but above all it is very funny.
The second part of the book, about his weekend cricket team, Harry Baldwins is, whilst still entertaining, not quite of as good. Maybe this is because it goes over an area that as already been written about by Marcus Berkmann in Rain Men & Zimmer Men and Harry Thompson in Penguins stopped play. That is only a personal moan though as anybody that hasn't read these particular books will probably enjoy this section equally as much as the childhood chapters.
I don't know how good an actor Michael Simkins is as I don't recognise his face but I do know that he is an excellent writer and I will be reading his previous book very soon.

Fatty Batter: How Cricket Saved My Life (Then Ruined It)

Michael Simkins

Reader Reviews:

Just extremely funny (0/0 people found this helpful)

A wonderful Insight (1/1 people found this helpful)

A good read (1/1 people found this helpful)

Funny and endearing cricketing reminiscences,s (2/3 people found this helpful)

A book that deserves to be at the top of the batting averages (3/3 people found this helpful)

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