We love discovering sports memorabilia with great stories. Recently we acquired one of Just Fontaine’s commemorative watches, which fills exactly that brief. The wristwatch is inscribed to dial “Just Fontaine. World Record 13 goals 1958-1998”. Fontaine, French football legend, presented one of these watches to each of the twenty two members of the French 1958 […] More…
When we sent out our first New Stock Catalogue of the year, we realised it had been a while – too long! – since our last one in September. We reflected on the sporting legends we had lost just since September – way too many. We thought we’d like to make at least brief mention […] More…
We have been contemplating the huge job in front of King Charles III. We reminded ourselves what an able man he has shown himself to be over the years. Us being us, we looked to sport for the clues. We all know what a great polo player and general equestrian he was. We’ve seen him […] More…
How proud would these pioneers of women’s football from 1918 be to see England’s Lionesses perform in the Women’s Euros 2022?! When this Scottish women’s team played in 2018, they would have rightly believed they had already come far. Despite attempts to set up and build up women’s football in the nineteenth century, it was […] More…
It’s just not cricket…or is it? Cricket as a sport has always been seen as one steeped in good manners. In recent years, however, we have all lived through incidents of ball tampering and match fixing in recent cricket matches. Is this a recent phenomenon? Or despite cricket’s gentlemanly reputation, has cunning behaviour been a […] More…
The (ab)use of the pun in the titles of sports books: The use of puns in the titles of sports books, particularly biographies, is nothing new. 1951 gave us Plum Warner’s “Long Innings” and Jim Laker’s “Spinning Round The World”, and so a new tradition was established. Ever since these early attempts at punnery any […] More…
Two huge cricket records at the Oval smashed by two different cricketers and best friends in the last Test match before one of them retires from international cricket…it reads like a plot of a corny cricket novel. But, as we all know, James Anderson and Alastair Cook made it happen in the latest Test match, […] More…
John Wisden, founder of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
16th March 2017
John Wisden founded the most iconic cricket annual in 1864: the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Its publication is eagerly awaited every year. Steeped in Wisdens as we are, we thought we’d take a closer look at the man himself.
John Wisden was born in Brighton in 1826. His father died when he was a boy and Wisden went to live with Sussex wicketkeeper, Tom Box. Wisden’s talent as a cricketer was obvious from early on. By the age of 18, he had made his debut for Sussex versus Kent. He took 6 wickets in the first innings; 3 in the 2nd innings.
John Wisden, founder of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
John Wisden soon became one of the star cricketers in the mid-19th century. He was tiny. He was 5’6″ tall and weighed 44 kilos. Somehow, however, he had ‘the power’: he was an exceptionally effective fast bowler and was deemed to be one of the best all-rounders of his time. In 1850 he played for the North versus the South at Lord’s. He claimed all 10 wickets in the second innings, all of which were clean bowled – a unique feat still in first class cricket! In the same year John Wisden took 340 wickets in 38 matches. Wisden’s nickname soon became ‘Little Wonder’ after the winner of the 1840 Epsom Derby.
Again in 1850 Wisden began to branch out from just playing cricket. He was a cricket coach at Harrow School from 1852-55. He also began making and selling cricket equipment and in 1855 he set up a cricket and cigar shop with Fred Lillywhite. In 1864 Wisden retired from cricket. Coincidentally…or not, that was also the year that his first Almanack appeared.
John Wisden’s Cricketer’s Almanack soon eclipsed its rivals due to its scrupulously accurate statistics and editorial independence. The first Wisden in 1864 was, however, a fairly eclectic mix of facts and figures. The almanack was 112 pages thick. It provided cricket scorecards and statistics…along with racing winners, the rules of quoits, the dates of the Crusades and an account of Charles I’s trial!
In 1872 Wisden set up his sports goods shop, John Wisden & Co in Cranbourn Street near Leicester Square. You can still see its plaque on the building today. Wisden died in 1884, by which time his Almanack had seen off its competition and was firmly established as cricket’s book of record. Wisden was buried in Brompton Cemetery in London. To commemorate Wisden’s 50th anniversary in 1913, the Almanack dispensed with its annual selection of its ‘Cricketers of the Year’. Instead it chose to create a ‘special portrait’ of a prominent individual. In this case it was its founder: John Wisden
John Wisden’s tribute in the 1913 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
