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Book Of The Year Award > 2011 > The Montpelier Cricket Club (Predecessor of Surrey County Cricket Club)
Philip Paine, Mischief Makers
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 A portion of cricket history is explored here by Philip Paine, who many readers will recognise as a man who has tracked down the often-forgotten graves of famous cricketers and has done some remarkable research on photos and likenesses of English Test Cricketers. Here, he looks to travel back beyond Surrey County Cricket Club to trace the history of its predecessor.
Engagingly, the author lists in his Introduction, all the problems that he encountered and even admits, 'It proved impossible to write a flowing, historical and factual account of the club.' This is certainly not Philip Paine's fault as there is clear evidence of the immense amount of research and hard work that he has undertaken but obviously, he has not been able to complete the project to his own satisfaction. He is not the first to tread this path and also not the first to be disappointed. Writing in 1902, C.W. Alcock bewailed the fact that he could find very few players and officials from the 1840's still alive and able to help his research. Some one hundred-odd years later, the task is even more difficult.
So what Philip Paine has done is to present all the evidence of his research in a year-by-year format, interspersed with copies of contemporary reports of matches and some biographies of notable participants. It must have infuriating for him to find some accurate historical information but then to come upon tantalisingly conflicting accounts of events, followed by large gaps in the proposed history. Although the author admits his disappointment in not accomplishing his original remit, the book may well turn out to be an admirable source book for any future historical research that might be undertake. One suspects that this may not be the last time we see the Montpelier Club in print.
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