Idling my way through Wisden the other day, I reflected on the major connections that the cricketers’ almanac has with Sussex. John Wisden was born in Brighton on 5th September, 1826 and went to school in Middle Street. His first experience with cricket was as a boy, earning pennies as a longstop on the Montpelier Ground in Brighton. He played county cricket for Sussex; I gloss over the handful of matches he played for Kent and Middlesex. The Times of 17 July, 1850 reports his achievement in taking all ten wickets (all bowled) for the North against the South. His almanac was first published in 1864.
The woodcut of two Nineteenth-Century top-hatted cricketers that has graced the cover of Wisden since 1938, albeit much reduced in impact since 2003, was made by Sussex artist, Eric Ravilious. It was Robert Harling, typographical consultant and editor who, having been asked to redesign the format of Wisden, suggested to the then publishers, Whitaker’s that Ravilious should be commissioned to engrave a new design. In his introduction to ‘Ravilious and Wedgwood’ (1986) Harling writes of Ravilious, ‘At first meeting I thought he looked more the cricketer he occasionally was than the artist he always was.’
And bringing Sussex and Wisden right up to date the following erratum appears in the 2007 edition, ‘The former Sussex player Alan Hansford asks us to point out that he has not been snubbed at Hove since it became known he was gay. His original article in ‘All Out Cricket’ referred to a single incident, but he has been welcomed at the ground many times since then.