Fatty Batter: How Cricket Saved My Life (Then Ruined It)

Fatty Batter: How Cricket Saved My Life (Then Ruined It)
Michael Simkins



If you like many of us are bored of the same old ghost written autobiographies, penning down the same old crap, from a sportsman who has only just finished puberty then this is for you.

It’s been many years since Shoot magazine was a weekly publication, where every single week you’d get an insight into the daily lives of professional footballers. Each issue you’d discover that 98% of them did exactly the same things in their spare time (Golf, Fishing and Snooker), 98% of them would have the same favourite Television Programme (Only Fools and Horses), and 98% of them would have the same superstition (Put the right boot on before the left one). Without this insightful information made available to the public, Footballers are releasing their autobiographies at a younger age Wayne Rooney aged just 22 has already released two versions of his, Cristiano Ronaldo has released one, along with Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, John Terry, David Beckham et al, the list is endless.

There used to be a time where footballers would at least wait until they had retired, gained a few years life experience before churning out a book, not any more. The problem is, they are all exactly the same as the old Shoot magazines these are people who from the ages of 16 to the present day have lived exactly the same lives day in day out, Train, Rest, Buy a Sports Car, Shag some bird, Match, Rest, Train (repeat for 10 months a year). The upshot is with the same ghostwriters churning out each book, they are all virtually carbon copies of one another.

What makes this autobiography so completely different to any others cluttering the shelves: a sportsman does not write this book!

Yes, you read that correctly. This is actually the second book by Michael Simkins, the first centres around his acting career, whilst this one is about his love for Cricket.

We begin the book with a bit of background, about his childhood. Son of a local sweet shop owner, an overweight kid always picked last to play football and other sports. He first got into cricket by mistake watching a test match in the mid sixties when 18 stone behemoth Colin Milburn strode to the crease and made a quick fire 94 in the same time it takes for Geoff Boycott to usually get off the mark.

From that moment on we are taken on a rollercoaster ride as he grew from sporting failure, to okay, more sporting failure but in a much better way. We see him discover Owzhat cricket dice, a passion for Sussex Cricket Club (even missing the 1966 World Cup Final to watch them), picking his secondary school based on the excellence of their cricket facilities. The book takes a back seat from when he enters sixth form to some point in his mid twenties. This is about a mans love of the game, therefore he spares us from the number of sexual conquests, and the amount of substances he took whilst at university or how many acting jobs he got. We re-join him in his mid twenties when he applies for a job with the cricket equivalent of “Club Call” in the 1980’s where he became a cricket commentator for a couple of years.

Eventually he decides to start playing again, and starts Saturday League cricket, however it’s the company of the team and opposition he dislikes so does the next best thing, he starts his own Sunday team. The book really kicks on from here as each chapter is basically a series of short comedic stories from some of the near 200 games he played for his Sunday side.

If you do have to read an autobiography this year, make it this one. If you’re a cricket fan and want to read a cricket book this year, make it this one.

This is arguably the funniest book I have read in the last couple of years, Simkins has a style which tantalises and teases you into making you think he is a sporting superstar, before the harsh reality hits that he is just like any one of us.

This was quite possibly my favourite Christmas present in 2007.

09.01.2008. 18:28

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