Different Class

“A modern-day John Arlott: uncomfortable but indispensable reading for those who love cricket but may so far have avoided Duncan Stone’s vital home truths about the game.”
“In this fascinating journey through history, Duncan Stone goes back to the working-class roots of the game, lifts the lid on the myths that cricket lives by, and explains why it’s impossible not to love it.”
“A warm, accessible but thorough-going account of how cricket and class are intertwined in England. Full of personal wit and charm but also rigour and drive.”
“At a time when the ECB seems intent on killing Test cricket, by commodifying it in search of quick profits, this book is a gentle reminder of the true ethos and variable pace of the game, etched in the memories of all who have played it at village or club level.”
“Different Class is in that special category of books — not just lucid and cogent but necessary and invaluable.”
“A wonderfully researched book in the great traditions of British iconoclastic writing the author punctures many cherished myths about the game and is a book all cricket lovers should read to learn where the game has come from and what is still wrong with it.”
“As an ignorant Scotsman more concerned with football, the place of cricket in English life and culture has always bemused me. But Duncan Stone’s brilliant book has convinced me that it’s in fact a hugely important story that has shaped the meaning of class, region and race.”
“I cannot recall a more provocative cricket book, nor one that is so timely.”
“An original and much needed reassertion of the sport’s roots in the era of the Indian Premier League and the ‘Hundred’”.

Duncan Stone is a historian long interested in the social and cultural machinations of sport, the concept and application of amateurism and who, exactly, gets to define the form, function and meaning of sport. He has worked as a forensic photographer, DJ and club promoter, builder, local government officer and lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, and was previously a visiting researcher at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia.

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