Blythe Smart Publications

The Real Colin Blythe

 

ISBN: 9780-9545017-5-4    276 pages     240 X 170    £11.99     (2009)

Amazon Kindle (Revised Edition)     $4.99     (2015)

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The book is dedicated to Stanley Blythe Smart nephew of the cricketer

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1. Family Roots

2. Relations

3. Discovered

4. Australia 1901-02

5. The New World

6. A Gold Medal

7. S. Africa 1905-06

8. Further Tests

9. Champions 1906

10. Matrimony

11. Australia 1907-08

12. Kent's Revival

13. Benefit Year

14. S. Africa 1909-10

15. Champions Again

16. Later Career

17. The Great War

18. Postscript

Appendix, Index

Batting and Bowling     (also see pictures below)

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This book about the author's great uncle was planned for several years and its production was hastened by the arrival of another biography on the cricketer which appeared to put him in a poor light. The research was undertaken in the archives in London regarding his antecedents, at sites in England where he lived and played, and the First World War locations at Ypres in Belgium and the Somme in France.

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Blythe was a true hero to our family especially due to our ongoing links with South East London, and The Real Colin Blythe aimed to correct several misconceptions but this proved to be a difficult task. The other biography by an unknown author with no connection to cricket and by a publisher once a newspaper editor came out in 2005. This had some average reviews by the cricketing world and new research from Kent C.C.C., but impolitiely focused more on Blythe's shortcomings.

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The Real Colin Blythe first set out to dispute the assertion he was born in a slum, since Booth's Poverty Map showed this to be totally untrue and his family were actually merchants and Royal Academy artists. It also challenged the notion his career was dogged by epilepsy, since the author held all Blythe's private papers and news reports and it was not once mentioned. Even if it were true it would be incorrect to focus on this or define the player in such a way. Many of today's sportsmen also fail on the international stage but for a variety of reasons.

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Our book was reviewed by Kent C.C.C. and their reviewer (who was involved in the previous book) criticised every aspect of it. This was most unfair and not a true reflection of its contents, thus we asked the editor if we could send a short letter to refute what he said, but they point blank refused. It appeared the club hierarchy would not have anyone disagree with them, and that some of the paternalistic attitudes from Blythe's day still persisted. It all reminded one of old gentlemen in club blazers nodding off under straw hats in the pavilion stand.

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The damage appeared to be already done and John Major in his Book of Cricket defined Blythe by the attributes of  slums and epilepsy. The matter was taken up with him and in true politician's fashion he said, "I will change it, if anything is proven" (even though it already was). Other contentious issues were a visit by Stuart Broad and the Ashes Cricket Team to Blythe's grave in Flanders in 2009. The author contacted the Commonwealth War Graves to state a red cricket ball was damaging the grave, and the team went there to unveil a permanent memorial but no family were invited. A later book by the History Press on players in the First World War also defined Blythe in this way, and an attempt to sort the matter out with the author was met by a brick wall.

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Despite such issues, The Real Colin Blythe received good reviews as Book of the Week in the Independent, in the Cricket Society Journal, in Line and Length, and in Kent on Sunday with headline "Ancestor [sic] does best to do Blythe justice." The latter reminds one of the issues with Millwall F.C., another sporting institution near Deptford, where national papers sensationalised crowd trouble for their own ends, but the local South London Press would give a different, more balanced account.