Stars on Sunday
Martin Chandler |Published: 2026
Pages: 284
Author: Sands, Mark
Publisher: Pitch
Rating: 4 stars
It is a sobering thought that even the sub-title of this one, The History of Cricket’s John Player League, will still leave some younger cricket followers scratching their heads. It is, after all, forty summers now since tobacco giant John Player stubbed out their sponsorship of a competition that enthralled me during my childhood, and remains the source of many fond memories for those of my generation to this day.
In various incarnations and with various different sponsors the League limped on without John Player for another two decades, and I suppose Mark Sands might be planning a second volume dealing with that, although if he did I am not convinced he would sell too many copies. The format did not age well, and once it ceased to be the ‘Sunday’ League and started cropping up on whatever day the schedule permitted it seemed to lose its focus and purpose.
But that wasn’t the case as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s. A popular but entirely accurate cliche as the sixties began was that county cricket, which then consisted of just one tournament, the County Championship, was in the doldrums. A small and steadily decreasing number of people were bothering to attend any of the 28* three day matches that each county played.
The brave new world started in 1963 with the launch of the Gillette Cup, a one day knock out tournament and, buoyed by the success of that and some relaxation of the law on what could and could not be done on a Sunday, the game finally encroached on the Sabbath with the launch of the International Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers were, a little like Lashings in more recent times, a nomadic bunch of aging superstars with a sprinkling of current players whose precise personnel varied from week to week. Their games were televised by BBC2 and proved popular. Whilst I recall the Cavaliers I did not appreciate until I read Mark Sands’ book just what their history and background was, but that is an integral part of this story and the opening chapter of Stars on Sunday is as good as any in the book.
So successful were the Cavaliers that the powers that be in English cricket took on the idea and the television slot as the John Player League started in 1969. Each of the seventeen First Class counties played each other once over the course of the season. The format was 40 overs a side with, over the years, a variety of rules designed to speed up the game and ensure a product that was attractive to spectators.
Many purists didn’t approve, and lots of them were not afraid to air their views, but the public and in particular youngsters like me loved it, just how much I had largely forgotten before I read Stars on Sunday. I am not a fan of The Hundred, and cannot imagine that I ever will be, but the book reminds me that it is not me who The Hundred is designed to appeal to. I shall therefore show it a little more respect in future, not least by trying to stop referring to it disparagingly as ‘The 16.4’.
Stars on Sundays, after the scene setting, then proceeds to take a season by season look back at the John Player League, instantly transporting me back to those Sunday afternoons sat in front of the television with my father and younger brother watching the action unfold. The story is well told, concentrating on the ebb and flow of the battle for the title rather than looking at each and every game, but there is plenty of other material and in particular the various records that were set and other eye catching performances as the years rolled on. It is strange to recall how back then 160 was a decent score, and the game itself did not remotely resemble the white ball cricket we watch today.
The most rapid change was in fielding standards, nowhere more so than at my beloved Lancashire. The Red Rose won the first two incarnations of the League, and it was a great pleasure to relive those two summers, albeit there was a sad reminder of the intense disappointment I felt at the end of the 1971 summer. All Lancashire had to do was beat mid table Glamorgan to complete a hat-trick of titles. Excitement grew in the Chandler household as Glamorgan struggled to get to 143. The third consecutive title was within touching distance but, to my horror, the Glamorgan bowlers had not read the script and Lancashire were bowled out for just 109.
That was that for Lancashire and the John Player League and they did not add to those two titles over its remaining fifteen summers. Essex, Kent and Hampshire all lifted the title three times, Leicestershire twice and Somerset, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the old enemy, Yorkshire, once each. There were many moments worthy of recollection over those years and Mark Sands faithfully recalls them all.
Worthy of mention too is David Lloyd’s foreword, the words of the veteran observer and member of those two victorious Lancashire teams hitting the spot perfectly. If I have one grumble it would be the absence of the final tables nor any statistics, which I would like to have had readily to hand, but I suspect the author’s answer to that one would be that the whole point of the exercise was to capture something of what the John Player League meant to those who followed it rather than trot out a dry history.
And Stars on Sunday is certainly not a dry history and I am certain that everyone to whom the John Player League meant anything will thoroughly enjoy it. But the book is more than an entertaining look back at a long gone competition. It is a valuable social history as well, and a demonstration of how cricket, albeit rather later later than it might have, did manage to climb out of those doldrums it found itself in in the sixties. There are also some interesting parallels, as well as some stark differences, in the issues English domestic cricket faces today.
*For a few seasons up to 1962 some counties played as many as 32 Championship matches
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