One Hell of a Life
Hardback
Publication date: 21 October 2024
Brian Close was one of the greatest characters of post-war cricket. His fearless courage, standing up to fast bowling and fielding close to the bat, was legendary. He was equally fearless in never wavering in his own certainties. Often defying convention, he mixed glory and disaster in a long and never dull career. Despite outstanding success as captain of both Yorkshire and England, he was sacked controversially from both roles.
In One Hell of a Life, Stephen Chalke draws on conversations he has had over the past 25 years, both with Brian Close himself and with team-mates, opponents and family, many of them, like Close, no longer living. The result is a fascinating portrait of an unusual man, one who might have reached greater heights if he had adopted more of a safety-first approach to life – but then he would not have been Brian Close: daring, defiant and at times plain daft. An inspirational leader, he refused to accept defeat or kneel before authority, living his life as he drove his cars: fast and reckless, with many a prang along the way.
The story of Brian Close is a tale like no other in cricket, rich with humour but also at times hauntingly sad. Close’s loss of the England captaincy, the book’s pivotal event, is set in the context of the social attitudes of the time, with cricket still run by an amateur class distrustful of a single-minded Yorkshireman who played always to win.
About the author: Stephen Chalke was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1948 and now lives in Bristol. In 1996 he left full-time employment in adult education to become a writer and publisher of cricket books. He has won five national Book of the Year awards. In 2019 the Cricket Writers’ Club honoured him with the prestigious Peter Smith Award for his ‘outstanding contribution to the presentation of cricket to the public’.
PRAISE FOR ONE HELL OF A LIFE
A fascinating and highly relevant biography.
Scyld Berry, The Telegraph
Chalke has done justice to a magnificently idiosyncratic cricketer. There are heaps of cracking anecdotes. I have not enjoyed a cricket book so much in years.
Matthew Engel, New Statesman
Chalke is assiduous in his use of both first- and second-hand sources, assembling the narrative with care and dropping in the gold where it will shine brightest.
Jon Hotten, Wisden Cricket Monthly
While I rarely read cricket books, anything [Stephen Chalke] pens is always worthwhile.
Mike Selvey, The Cricketer
I was surprised to find so many fresh [stories], some of them wonderful. Indeed one of the remarkable things about the book is that it has a general feeling of freshness, despite the familiarity of so much of the tale… Most necessary of all given the highs and lows of Close’s life, and the strong views he and others have had about its events, it is a book of admirable balance [and] careful and shrewd analysis… overall it is hard to recommend this volume highly enough. Informative and thought provoking throughout, often amusing and at other times quite moving, it does its subject proud. It is of course a book about an era of cricket, despite the focus on one man. It does cricket proud too.
Ned Holt, newsletter of the Yorkshire CCC Southern Group
Rather than consult a thesaurus for new superlatives I will simply give it the five stars it undoubtedly merits, and then go away and try and work out whether my knee jerk reaction, that One Hell of a Life really is his best book yet, [is justified].
Martin Chandler, CricketWeb
There can never, surely, have been a more dramatic, more consistently turbulent, altogether more interesting life in cricket than that of Brian Close. Nor is anyone better equipped to chronicle that life than Stephen Chalke. [This] new book is surely definitive.
Charles Barr, The Cricket Statistician (journal of the ACS)
Beautifully written, as are all books by Stephen Chalke, pacy and well-structured.
Chris Waters, The Yorkshire Post
What more is there to be said about former Yorkshire and England captain Brian Close, one of the most controversial figures in post- war English cricket? After all, three books have been written about that most talented of all-round sportsmen before. The answer, in a beautifully- crafted and well-written book, is plenty.
Bill Marshall, Bradford Telegraph & Argus
It isn’t a biography as such, the author instead presenting the life and career through the tales of those who knew the subject best. But it is all the more readable for that and Stephen Chalke maintains his status as one of the genuinely great cricket writers with this, his twenty-sixth book. For all of the outstanding competition from the others, this may well be his best yet.
Steve Dolman, Peakfan’s blog
£20.00
Description
Hardback
Publication date: 21 October 2024
Brian Close was one of the greatest characters of post-war cricket. His fearless courage, standing up to fast bowling and fielding close to the bat, was legendary. He was equally fearless in never wavering in his own certainties. Often defying convention, he mixed glory and disaster in a long and never dull career. Despite outstanding success as captain of both Yorkshire and England, he was sacked controversially from both roles.
In One Hell of a Life, Stephen Chalke draws on conversations he has had over the past 25 years, both with Brian Close himself and with team-mates, opponents and family, many of them, like Close, no longer living. The result is a fascinating portrait of an unusual man, one who might have reached greater heights if he had adopted more of a safety-first approach to life – but then he would not have been Brian Close: daring, defiant and at times plain daft. An inspirational leader, he refused to accept defeat or kneel before authority, living his life as he drove his cars: fast and reckless, with many a prang along the way.
The story of Brian Close is a tale like no other in cricket, rich with humour but also at times hauntingly sad. Close’s loss of the England captaincy, the book’s pivotal event, is set in the context of the social attitudes of the time, with cricket still run by an amateur class distrustful of a single-minded Yorkshireman who played always to win.
About the author: Stephen Chalke was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1948 and now lives in Bristol. In 1996 he left full-time employment in adult education to become a writer and publisher of cricket books. He has won five national Book of the Year awards. In 2019 the Cricket Writers’ Club honoured him with the prestigious Peter Smith Award for his ‘outstanding contribution to the presentation of cricket to the public’.
PRAISE FOR ONE HELL OF A LIFE
A fascinating and highly relevant biography.
Scyld Berry, The Telegraph
Chalke has done justice to a magnificently idiosyncratic cricketer. There are heaps of cracking anecdotes. I have not enjoyed a cricket book so much in years.
Matthew Engel, New Statesman
Chalke is assiduous in his use of both first- and second-hand sources, assembling the narrative with care and dropping in the gold where it will shine brightest.
Jon Hotten, Wisden Cricket Monthly
While I rarely read cricket books, anything [Stephen Chalke] pens is always worthwhile.
Mike Selvey, The Cricketer
I was surprised to find so many fresh [stories], some of them wonderful. Indeed one of the remarkable things about the book is that it has a general feeling of freshness, despite the familiarity of so much of the tale… Most necessary of all given the highs and lows of Close’s life, and the strong views he and others have had about its events, it is a book of admirable balance [and] careful and shrewd analysis… overall it is hard to recommend this volume highly enough. Informative and thought provoking throughout, often amusing and at other times quite moving, it does its subject proud. It is of course a book about an era of cricket, despite the focus on one man. It does cricket proud too.
Ned Holt, newsletter of the Yorkshire CCC Southern Group
Rather than consult a thesaurus for new superlatives I will simply give it the five stars it undoubtedly merits, and then go away and try and work out whether my knee jerk reaction, that One Hell of a Life really is his best book yet, [is justified].
Martin Chandler, CricketWeb
There can never, surely, have been a more dramatic, more consistently turbulent, altogether more interesting life in cricket than that of Brian Close. Nor is anyone better equipped to chronicle that life than Stephen Chalke. [This] new book is surely definitive.
Charles Barr, The Cricket Statistician (journal of the ACS)
Beautifully written, as are all books by Stephen Chalke, pacy and well-structured.
Chris Waters, The Yorkshire Post
What more is there to be said about former Yorkshire and England captain Brian Close, one of the most controversial figures in post- war English cricket? After all, three books have been written about that most talented of all-round sportsmen before. The answer, in a beautifully- crafted and well-written book, is plenty.
Bill Marshall, Bradford Telegraph & Argus
It isn’t a biography as such, the author instead presenting the life and career through the tales of those who knew the subject best. But it is all the more readable for that and Stephen Chalke maintains his status as one of the genuinely great cricket writers with this, his twenty-sixth book. For all of the outstanding competition from the others, this may well be his best yet.
Steve Dolman, Peakfan’s blog
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