In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Cricket, Roger Seymour reviews a book documenting England’s Tour of the West Indies in 1986.
By Roger Seymour
Historians, researchers and writers seeking information on the first three English Test tours of the West Indies (1929/30, 1934/35, and 1947/48) have to rely on the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack (first published in 1964), reports from various English and West Indian newspapers, and snippets gleaned from the few autobiographies of, or books by written former players. After England’s second post-war tour, a subsequent source emerged – the start of a new trend – as two detailed accounts of the visit were published in the same year. Alex Bannister, who covered cricket for the British newspaper, the Daily Mail from 1947 to 1979 wrote “Cricket Cauldron”, and E W Swanton, the famous English journalist and commentator, penned “West Indian Adventure with Hutton’s MCC Team 1953-54”.
Two books recounted Peter May’s 1959-60 team visit, while three writers recorded accounts of the 1967-68 MCC visit to the Caribbean. Christopher Martin-Jenkins’ “Testing Time” is the only book to capture the last MCC tour of the Caribbean, in 1973-74. Five titles addressed England’s 1980-81 trip to the West Indies, including two by players in the tour party: Geoffrey Boycott’s “In the Fast Lane” and Graham Gooch’s “My Cricket Diary ‘81” (co-written with Alan Lee). There was also a unique volume, “England v. West Indies 1981: The England Team Tour Book”. It was described as the first tour book written by the players – in which individual players addressed a specific part of the tour in single chapters – and published with the approval of the Test and County Cricket Board. The 1985-86 England Tour of the West Indies is probably one which the English players and the accompanying cricket media appear to have collectively forgotten, or, rather, erased from their memories, since neither ventured, nor were apparently approached to record their thoughts and reflections on the subject.
In 1990, at the JF Kennedy Library (then on Main Street, Georgetown) I came upon James Michener’s latest offering, “Caribbean” (1989), a 672-page tome. Well aware of his penchant for voluminous research before typing a single line, I flipped to the final pages of the book for a glimpse at the bibliography and references. Under ‘further reading’ I was pleasantly surprised to find two references to cricket: CLR James’ classic “Beyond a boundary” and “Another Bloody Tour: England in the West Indies 1986” by Frances Edmonds (162 pages, published August 26, 1986). Michener summed the latter up as “the irreverent report of an intellectual Englishwoman married to a professional cricketer…”
“Another Bloody Tour” exists as the solitary eulogy to the harrowing experience the English cricketers suffered. The writer was the wife of England team member Phil Edmonds, and a cursory search revealed that she is, most likely, the first woman ever to have been tasked with covering an England Test tour of the Caribbean, or anywhere for that matter. The book was also released on cassette tape (at the height of that recording device’s popularity, in the 1980s), albeit an abbreviated version, read by Edmonds. This abbreviated audio version comes across as a typical English tongue-in-cheek report of a disastrous travelogue. Perhaps it was the ‘crutch’ adopted by those who were professionally engaged on the tour – players and media – to combat the lingering scars.
If readers are interested in match reports recounting the ebbs and flows of the Tests, the One Day Internationals (ODIs), and the first-class encounters of the tour replete with scorecards and batting, bowling and fielding statistics, be aware that Edmonds’ book does not provide such particulars. The England Tour itinerary listed on the page preceding the opening chapter, and the five-line summaries of the five Test matches and the four ODIs on the final two pages are as close as one gets to any details. Six pages of pictures offer 16 photos, including one of the England team prior to setting out, four action shots, one of West Indies Captain Viv Richards in a pensive mood, one of the English press interrogating England’s manager and captain, and one of the author posing in a swimsuit in the Caribbean Sea.
The choice of Edmonds to document the tour was clearly not some casual or random act by an anxious publisher desperate to sell more books. At that moment, Phil and Frances were ‘the golden couple’ of English cricket, both having attended Cambridge University, where Phil earned a Blue in cricket, flighting his slow left arm orthodox spinners, while Frances read Modern and Medieval Languages at New Hall. On graduating, Phil headed to London to earn a Middlesex cap, before getting an England call up, while Frances worked with the European Economic Community as an international translator. Her linguistic abilities can be fully appreciated on the cassette tapes where, in her delightful English accent, one can experience biting sarcasm, and droll imitations of Caribbean accents.
Edmonds’ account of the tour was clearly written with an English readership in mind. With her wry English sense of humour (which appeared to have sailed right over Michener’s head), poking fun at any and everyone, including herself and her husband, she artfully disguises the underlying serious tone of the book. The sprinkling of references specific to English culture, such as “Wykehamists” and “Ampleforthians” (pupils or former pupils of the English public schools, Winchester College and Ampleforth College, respectively), and mentioning names like Brian Clough (the former highly successful Nottingham Forest Football Club manager) could make it rough going for a reader unfamiliar with her background.
The reader is introduced to the seemingly laissez-faire approach to life by the writer’s husband, who appears to have stepped out of a P G Wodehouse novel. Christened Philippe-Henri, no doubt one of the few to have graced a Test match wicket with a double-barrel French first name, and sporting a Zambian accent, he apparently spent most of his time at Cambridge at Fenner’s, while also attempting to earn a second Blue at number eight on the rugby field, having previously played for England Schools. Phil, it seemed, like the Wodehousian character Mike, of “Mike at Wrykyn” fame, would rather play cricket than work. Phil was also an insomniac whose habits included drawn curtains, radio tuned to the BBC all night long, and reading until the wee hours. He might be the only cricketer from the Gentleman and Players era still around.
Now in his twilight years – he turned 35 on the tour – Phil had an up and down Test career, thanks in part to his well-documented disputes with his county and (for a period) England Captain Mike Brearley. One gathers that the then controlling body of English cricket, the staid Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB), would also not have appreciated his eccentricities. After missing five winter tours with “admirable stoicism”, Phil returned to the fold under David Gower for the 1984-85 tour of India, where England, in the midst of the chaotic aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination managed a surprising 2 – 1 victory. After a glorious 1985 summer, where England regained the Ashes, with Phil playing in all five Tests for the second consecutive series, it was a confident England that set off to face the towering West Indies.
The writer’s preparations for her assignment included reading, at her publisher’s suggestion, C L R James’ classic and they subsequently visited the doyen of West Indian cricket writers at his Brixton home.
In “Another Bloody Tour”, she captured the grace and intellect of the deep thinking Renaissance man, who correctly predicted the outcome of the machinations surrounding the forthcoming English tour. The inclusion of Graham Gooch, John Emburey (Phil’s Middlesex spin twin and rival for an England place), Peter Willey and Les Taylor, who were coming off three year bans for having played in South Africa were the source of contention. (At the time, West Indian rebels were suffering lifetime bans for playing in the apartheid republic.)
Edmonds faithfully follows the tour itinerary – much to the consternation of the TCCB – weaving vignettes like the visit to James into the journey, providing the reader with behind-the-scenes happenings as it disintegrated into an unmitigated disaster. Her subtle off-the-field observances and awareness alert the reader that Geoffrey Boycott, part of the commentary team, took his cricket gear along to grab a net when the opportunity was presented. She highlights the unwritten decorum expected in the press box, and the unbearable weight of the media on a losing team, as they search for reasons to explain the defeats. Dinner with West Indian Cricket Board hierarchy reveals the unseen efforts by the board and regional politicians – including, surprisingly Jamaica’s Michael Manley, a staunch anti-apartheid leader – to ensure the tour happened, and their deep concern over lost revenue as the three-day test matches were not favourable to the board’s coffers.
Poor England. Having arrived full of hope, their tour immediately unravelled like a ball of wool, with a loss to the lowly Windward Islands. The weak anti-apartheid protests dissolved, just as James predicted and never presented a serious distraction. The Jamaican fireball Patrick Patterson drove fear into everyone that stood in his path, and on the lightning-fast Caribbean pitches, England were no match for the all-conquering West Indies. Apart from a brief glimmer of hope, a win in the second ODI in Port-of Spain behind a defiant Gooch century, England were steamrolled into the dust, succumbing to another 5 – 0 ‘Blackwash’ in the series, following a similar scoreline for the 1984 Summer series in England, thus achieving an unprecedented feat in mediocrity.
Edmonds’ ability to see humour at every turn keeps the journal ticking along. She pokes fun at the slow hotel service, the arrests of Boycott and Matthew Engel in Trinidad for not having work permits, the dreary attitude of the disconsolate Englishmen’s approach to net practice as the 82-day tour meandered and the arrival of the wives after the TCCB’s sanctioned six weeks timeline. Their subsequent adventures whilst driving mini-mokes is hilarious. The alleged amorous encounter between a former Miss Barbados and an unknown member of the England team, as reported by one of the English tabloids provided further fodder for Edmonds’ pen. Her book deal must have tilted the TCCB’s equilibrium on many fronts, both prior and during the tour, and certainly in the aftermath of its publication.
The final paragraph of the fifteenth and penultimate chapter (before the epilogue) titled, ‘Captain, the ship has sunk’ – cleverly adopted from calypsonian Gypsy’s 1986 mega-hit – sums up the English team’s misery. Further, on their return to England, they were subjected to a two-and-a-half hour wait for their baggage at Heathrow Airport. Edmonds wrote: “Each and every item was not only checked by trained sniffer dogs, but also carefully hand searched. For the first time I was struck by the full ignominious enormity of what had happened. England cricketers, once considered the country’s sporting diplomats, the glorious game’s roving ambassadors, were now relegated to the status of international dope-pedlars.”
The younger generation wishing to know what all the fuss is about the West Indian juggernaut of the 1980s and early 1990s should spend a few hours reading “Another Bloody Tour” for a grasp of the legacy. It’s no wonder no else wrote a book on the tour.
Postscript
Phil and Frances were amicably divorced – she did touch on the subject, acknowledging the strain the demands of the modern game places on marriages – in 2007.
“Another Bloody Tour” was a bestseller, and was shortlisted in 2019 by the Wisden Cricket Monthly among the all-time best books written on cricket. It heralded a new beginning for Frances Edmonds who went to pen “Cricket XXXX Cricket”, about the following winter tour to Australia.
Today, Phil Edmonds is a multi-millionaire businessman. After retiring in 1987 from cricket, he answered an emergency call from Middlesex, struck by an injury crisis in June 1992, to appear in one match versus Nottinghamshire. Arriving at Trent Bridge in his Rolls Royce he duly resumed his partnership with his old partner-in-crime Emburey, taking four for 48 in the first innings of a drawn match. Edmonds later became Chairman of Middlesex County Cricket Club.
