Fatty Batter: How cricket saved my life (then ruined it)

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Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins. Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins. Paperback , pages. Published May 22nd by Ebury Press first published April 1st Costa Book Award Nominee for Biography To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Fatty Batter , please sign up. Lists with This Book.

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. As a chubby youngster living over his dad's sweet shop he spent many hours playing "Owzthat" I still own a set , a cricketing game played with two lozenge-shaped metal rollers, one representing the batsman and one the bowler.

This was necessary for he was not very good at games and when it came to selecting teams in the school playground he was always the last to be picked. As he grew slightly older, he advanced from "Owzthat" to playing cricket in his dad's shop when custom was slack and he learnt to play drives into such as the love hearts, akin, to say, cover, the chocolate display, perhaps akin to square leg and other such exotic locations.

He even graduated to having his dad bowl at him in the park but he still wasn't a great success However, as he got older he improved and attended nets at Sussex where former Sussex player Les Lenham coached him and tacitly advised him to look elsewhere for his enjoyment. However, he persevered, despite his bizarre bowling action that prompts many a laugh, improved to a degree and he eventually organised his own team, for a least he was guaranteed a game when he was in charge! He named them 'The Harry Baldwins' after he had seen a photograph of a Victorian cricketer with a thick waistline who was pulling up his large-size whites.

Not surprisingly he became a regular in the side and his attempts at making sure that he had eleven players each game are hilarious and, for those of us who have organised such sporting teams, very true to life. On one classic occasion he even had film director Sam Mendes, a more than useful club cricketer, guesting for him in one game and Mendes went on to score a century and take five wickets in 'The Baldwins' win. That particular story reminds me of when we, as a football team, once played a season's cricket and in one game we had a player who was a professional for a league side because he was on our books and playing football for us at the time.

The game was 20 overs a-side and each of 10 players had to bowl two overs; well, some of our footballers could not bowl so the opposition batsmen smashed them all round the field and totalled over They thought it was hilarious when the ball was flying to all parts of the ground. But it was not so hilarious to them when our demon batsman, a certain Ray Berry, went to the wicket and smote them all round the ground for a magnificent, and huge, century to give us an easy victory!

As sometimes happened with the Baldwins, drinks taken after the match were downed in a stony silence! How the author kept his relationship going while running the team is a heck of a question for he was more often than not in dire straits with domestic arrangements after the match when things did not go according to plan. But his relationship somehow survived, as he sweet talked his partner into accepting his often pathetic and hilarious excuses. The stories are legion and often provoke laugh-out-loud reaction, particularly when one can empathise so easily with what is going on.

Having spent my life around cricket fields, it is easy for me to put myself in his situation, especially when he talks about people that I mixed with in my cricketing time. One story relates to a particular friend of mine, Andy Babington of Sussex and Gloucestershire fame, and although I desist from telling it because of its content, I can imagine Babs saying what he did! Michael Simkins has us believe that cricket offers a shelter from life's irksome realities and a place in which to quietly dream while on the other hand somehow trying to keep a grip on reality.

It could quite easily be labelled as the perfect net practice for life. It is a very funny book and one that every cricket lover or player, however serious, should read.

I feel sure they would all enjoy it immensely. Oct 07, Sid Nuncius rated it it was amazing. Consider the following questions: In all the years since you first picked up a cricket bat, do you still remember with a thrill the occasion when you actually got to the pitch of a friendly half-volley, and just for once the ball didn't dribble a few humiliating yards toward mid-on or loop gently into the hands of backward point, but rocketed through extra-cover for four? In all the years since you first picked up a cricket ball, do you still remember with a thrill the occasion when you pitc Consider the following questions: In all the years since you first picked up a cricket ball, do you still remember with a thrill the occasion when you pitched one just outside off and it turned in just enough to go through the gate of the hopeless incompetent at the far end to bowl him middle-and-off?

Does the single, unadorned phrase "eight for forty-three" unfailingly send you into a long and blissful reverie involving two rather mad, staring eyes under a shock of curly hair and Ray Bright's middle stump lying flat on the Headingley turf? If the answer to all of these is "yes," then you are me and probably ought to seek psychiatric help. However, if the questions have any meaning to you, whatever the answers, then you will enjoy this book hugely, as I did. It is the story of one semi-competent cricketer's love for the game from the first stirrings of interest through to an adult obsession which many, many people will recognise.

It is beautifully written, hilariously funny - I literally cried with laughter several times - and very, very touching in places. Highly, highly recommended to anyone who has ever played cricket at any level whatsoever. A fantastically enjoyable book. Mar 23, will rated it it was amazing.

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

The idea was just to keep a record for me. It wasn't to write a long complicated review, it wasn't really to come up with recommendations - it was just for me, so that I could hit book on the archives and get a list of all I've read this y Fatty Batter: It wasn't to write a long complicated review, it wasn't really to come up with recommendations - it was just for me, so that I could hit book on the archives and get a list of all I've read this year.

That was the plan. It has gone slightly wrong. T'other day I was reprimanded lovingly admonished by Maria for not recommending everyone to go out and buy a book I liked. Well, the fact is I don't have the courage of my convictions. I know what I like and I'm pretty sure that not everyone who reads this both of you likes what I like.

So from now on I'm just going to mention the books I've read, make a couple of comments about the book for my interest and leave it at that. Fatty Batter is wonderful!!!! True, I think you have to be male, born in the '60s late '50s , like cricket to enjoy it. But if that describes you then this is the book for you! Go out and buy it now!!! Jan 26, Andy Weston rated it it was amazing. Last part about the Baldwins cricket match make me think I should have written a book about Anselmians - still might.

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Jul 14, Lucie rated it it was ok Shelves: I'm giving this 2 stars because the account of his childhood is so snort-with-laughter-in-public funny I turned to my father for his comparable cricketing anecdotes. The account of his mature cricketing exploits left me so very sorry for Julia and so very grateful for Germaine Greer.

I'm glad I read it, I've honed the essential elements of a respectful partnership, having not been caught out by the wry self-deprecating humour which normally knocks me for six. Michael Simkins in s can golden I'm giving this 2 stars because the account of his childhood is so snort-with-laughter-in-public funny I turned to my father for his comparable cricketing anecdotes.

Michael Simkins in s can golden duck off. I remain optimistic that 21st century Michael Simkins knows this. Oct 05, Nick rated it it was amazing. Who needs to roll up a trouser-leg when you can take off a whole jumper and give it to some bloke to wrap around his middle alongside six or seven other jumpers? Michael Simkins nom de cricket: Simmo offers us an entertaining example of the Nick Hornby fat-lad-chosen-last-for-the-football-team genre of autobiography NevergotpickedLit?

The book's saving grace is that Simmo may be a shockingly average amateur cricketer, but when it comes to self-deprecating wit and telling a good anecdote, he's as sprightly as Garry Sobers in his prime was Sobers sprightly? The young Simkins was first inspired to take up his bat by Colin Milburn, one in a long line of England cricketers who were undoubtedly sportsmen but whose waistlines challenge you to describe them as athletes.

We follow his obsession into adult-hood, where he runs a Sunday team of similarly devoted nutters. The anecdotes and quirky characters hurtle down at us like yorkers bowled by a fast bowler that I'm not quite knowledgeable enough to name, but, like other good examples of the genre, Fatty Batter isn't really about cricket.

Wistful and nostalgic about an England that's now more Abi Titmuss than Fred Titmus, as Simmo puts it, the book is about men and how we deal with lives that didn't quite turn out how we dreamt they would through a combination of back-slapping camaraderie, beer, nicknames and jokes Doctor, doctor! My wife's swallowed a cricket ball! An entertaining read indeed, or as my recently divorced friend might say: Enjoyment wins by an innings and 95 runs. We have noticed that there is an issue with your subscription billing details.

Fatty Batter

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