Christianity at the Crease
Martin Chandler |Published: 2025
Pages: 167
Author: Midwinter, Eric
Publisher: ACS
Rating: 3.5 stars
Eric Midwinter was a remarkable man. Having sadly passed away in August of this year this one is his twenty first cricket title. It is a prodigious output and that from a man whose first foray into cricket literature, a biography of WG Grace, was not published until he was approaching 50.
Which is something that demonstrates that Midwinter was certainly not a man who, to use the words of CLR James, only cricket knew. The game may have been a passion of Midwinter’s, and it is in that context that I will always recall him, but in truth his greater contributions to his fellow man have been as a social historian and as one of the founders of the University of the Third Age, an organisation that will doubtless exist, unlike anyone reading this review, in perpetuity.
Despite his debut being, at first glance, an entirely conventional sort of cricket book most Midwinter titles, and particularly so latterly, have looked at aspects of the game in a historical context, and particular the social history concerning which Midwinter was such an expert. I suppose it is fitting that the final Midwinter publication is very much of that ilk.
As so often in the past Midwinter took me back to my schooldays. In the 1960s and 1970s religious education was not what it is now. My primary school even had Church of England in its full name, and our teachers taught us how the Church came into being. I must admit that not a great deal of it stuck, but the memories came flooding back as I read the early chapters of Christianity at the Crease, greatly enhanced by Midwinter’s, despite his great age, twenty first century perspective.
The story of how and why the Church of England embraced cricket, whereas other denominations did not do so, is a key part of the narrative. The public schools and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge made a full contribution to this, and there are some remarkable statistics quoted that show just how strong the grip of the church was in England as the game developed and grew as indeed did the reach of the British Empire.
As the twentieth century dawned the hold that the church had on the country began to weaken, but even in my childhood I recall it was still strong. My mother and many others who lived in the village where I grew up were regular churchgoers. Fortunately for me my father, although he took a passionate interest in cricket, was not in any way a religious man so, thankfully, I had what I feel can properly described as a balanced upbringing.
Thus I have witnessed a huge reduction in the number of the population who regularly attend church and, particularly in recent years, a significant fall in the number of cricket clubs up and down the country and, with it, participation in the game. At the same time as the game and the church have diverged cricket is doing much better at maintaining and developing its position than the church is. Midwinter’s closing chapters on that question are illuminating and in particular the observation that closes his narrative; cricket had lost any hint of its Christian aura.
I cannot help but be struck by the fact that the end of Eric Midwinter’s long life sees his final project look at an important and neglected subject. Whether by accident or design it is also one that sees him able to describe and analyse the beginning, middle and end of this particular story. Cricket at the Crease stands as a fitting tribute to its author.
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