by Mayukh Ghosh
Just 23 wickets to show for 22 games in the season.
The 45 year old was skeptical about the future of his career with the wandering side, The Journeymen.
But he was not ready to give up. He found himself on the telephone to Ken Biddulph, the old Somerset bowler.
"What did you have in mind?", asked Biddulph.
"Well, I thought maybe we could meet for half an hour every week.", was the reply.
"Half an hour? You can't do anything in half an hour."
"Well, an hour, then."
They met on 5th November 1993. It didn't go according to plan. They were there even after seven thirty and for the next few months, this became the routine.
He then signed up for an extra-mural class at University of Bath. It was called an 'Introduction to Feature Writing'. This man already had degrees in Mathematics and English literature.
As part of the course, he was asked to write a feature-length article on a subject of interest.
Biddulph and his wonderful stories was the first thing that came to his mind.
He then thought of asking him about the best game of cricket he ever played.
They sat with a pint of beer each and Biddulph talked him through the Somerset v Yorkshire match at Bath in 1959.
The next day he was in the library, looking up the Times report of that match.
Then he thought and asked Biddulph, "Who else?".
He suggested Martin Horton's name.
And then the likes of Arthur Milton, Don Shepherd, Bryan Stott, Dickie Dodds, Doug Insole,.....
October 7, 1997.
An unknown writer self-publishes his first book, on county cricket in the 1950s.
At a time when Dickie Bird's autobiography is getting all the attention in the U.K.
A few weeks later, the author gets a call from Frank Keating. Keating says it's the best he has read in a long,long time and will be writing the same in his column for The Guardian.
Another few weeks later, the author finds that E.W. Swanton has named it as one of his six best cricket books of all time.
And then he finds John Major saying that it is one of the best books he has ever read.
Michael Parkinson's column on the book in The Daily Telegraph reaches the most number of readers and the 1500 copies printed vanishes in a few days.
Another 1000 copies by spring 1998.
And another 800 by spring 1999.
3300 copies. All gone. We are now left with the occasional and often overpriced copies on Amazon and AbeBooks.
Thankfully, Stephen Chalke continued to write.
More importantly, he continued to write high quality stuff, for a period of over 20 years.
And has published many quality books written by others.
For him it has always been " A labour of love. As cricket should always be".
On hectic days, when things go wrong, his books often provide the answers to pretty much all of life's problems.....
Stephen Chalke was born June 5, 1948.