The Girls of Summer

David Tossell

Description

The year 2015 was a historic one for the England women''s cricket team: their first full year as professional players and with every ball of their Ashes series live on television and radio. As the dramatic events of the summer unfolded, David Tossell was given exclusive access to follow at close quarters, from freezing training mornings in the dead of winter to the dressing room and team meetings in the heat of battle against Australia. Under the guidance of a coach who cared deeply about their performance and welfare, a diverse group of girls came together in the pursuit of international glory and personal achievement, united by a remarkable love for each other and a passion for their profession. As The Girls of Summer reveals, they would need every piece of resilience and resolve those bonds could offer. With a foreword by England captain Charlotte Edwards.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785312229
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2016
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
David Tossell, 2016
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-135-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-78531-222-9
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Contents
Foreword
Introduction and Acknowledgements
1. Back to School
2. Home and Away
3. The First Lady
4. Another Chance to Shine
5. Contenders
6. A Career at the Crossroads
7. County Court
8. Man on a Mission
9. Carry On, Matron
10. These Girls Can
11. Ashes at Last
12. Poles Apart
13. Turning Point
14. The Ugly Truth
15. Get Ready For It
16. Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath
17. Test of Patience
18. The Day the Music Died
19. Fight for the Right
20. The Short Way Back
21. Sinking by the Sea
22. The End of Days
Postscript
Appendix
Photographs
For the Girls of Summer. Thank you for the lifts and the laughs.
For my own girls of every season: Sara, Amy, Sarah, Laura and Karis.
Thank you for the love and the life.
About the author
David Tossell is the author of 13 previous sports books, including five nominations in the British Sports Book Awards and two for the MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year. A sports journalist for more than three decades, he has been the head of the NFL s public relations in Europe for the past 20 years.
Cover pictures by Press Association: Katherine Brunt (main picture and back) and Georgia Elwiss (right) celebrate Test wickets and one-day victory, while Charlotte Edwards (left) and Sarah Taylor (bottom) lament their dismissals and the England girls suffer the pain of defeat (back).
Foreword
By England Captain Charlotte Edwards
M ANY times in the weeks after the 2015 Women s Ashes I saw little girls picking up a bat and ball. Their parents would come up to me and say how much their children had enjoyed watching the series and that it had been a trigger for them to start playing the game. That is so pleasing and it is an indication of what an important, historic summer it was for the women s game. Having reflected quite a bit on it I realise that, even though the result was not what we wanted as an England team, when you look at the success of the series, the attendances at the matches and just where the game finds itself now, then it was a brilliant series to be a part of. It was amazing the way the ECB marketed the games, the manner in which all the counties got behind us, the level of social media interest. It was an incredible feeling walking into grounds for the games.
But disappointment is always going to be the overriding factor for me. It was a wonderful summer in general for women s sport and we really wanted to carry on the momentum from the England bronze medal in the football World Cup and the success in the hockey European Championship. It was great that we were supported and profiled as much as the other sports and got as many headlines.
The fans who came to our games were remarkable; so passionate and positive. There were very few negative comments from the people who followed us throughout the summer - and they kept on coming. One group, from Didsbury in Lancashire, were testament to that, showing up at every single game. But that just made it all the more heartbreaking that we weren t able to give them the results they wanted and were unable to retain the Ashes against a strong Australian side.
We felt like we had let a lot of people down. What makes it doubly frustrating for me is that there wasn t much between the two teams at all. I keep thinking how we played poorly at times yet nearly won. We just needed only a slightly better performance and we would have got over the line. But that is the cruelty of international sport.
There were so many small turning points. In my mind I see Heather Knight s run-out in the second game at Bristol quite a lot. It seemed such a small thing at the time but it was a massive shift in terms of momentum when we were chasing a target to win, having already gone ahead in the series. You could see the impact it had on the Aussies just when they were thinking that England were going to cruise home. Suddenly the whole summer changed, certainly in terms of where the Australians were at mentally.
But at no stage in the multi-format series did we feel like we could not retain the Ashes. The Test match was disappointing and the way we played meant we never really deserved to do well, but we still believed, especially with the way we came out in the first Twenty20 game at Chelmsford. But then we batted really poorly in the next game at Hove, even though we had an unlucky run-out at another crucial moment. Going back further there was a vital dropped catch against the Australian captain Meg Lanning and a missed run-out. They were crucial moments within the series and we didn t quite grasp them when we should have done.
I have had a lot of disappointments and I don t take them well at all, even though I have got other experiences to fall back on, like when we lost in the 2013 World Cup and immediately went on to win the next two Ashes series. To be honest, I think the defeats get worse and hurt more as you get older because you know you only have a few more years to play and you want to win every series you contest. I am a pretty proud person and losing the Ashes still cuts deeply. If it didn t feel like this I would be slightly worried. It is a good sign for me that I still have the inner drive to want to put it right.
But when I look at the sport overall it blows me away to think where it has got to so quickly. Every week during this past year there seemed to be some kind of development, whether it was the establishment of a Big Bash League for women or increased prize money given by the ICC to the international women s game, or even my England teammate Sarah Taylor becoming the first female to play Grade cricket in Australia. It has been one thing after another. For any young player, women s cricket is now a really good career option. It is unbelievable how you go places now and people know who you are, although it has taken a little bit of time to adjust to everything. Hopefully the England girls are going to be very much stronger for everything that happened in the summer of 2015. I know we are all energised by the thought of what is lying ahead.
It is an incredibly exciting period to be involved in women s cricket, and therefore a great time for someone to be writing a book about the England women s team. When we heard that we were going to have someone following us about all summer we wondered what to expect, but we welcomed David with open arms and got used to having him around - and he never encroached on our space! It could have been such a great story if we had won the Ashes on the final day, but I know that with the characters we have in the dressing room, and the ups and downs of the summer, this book will be a fascinating read.
Introduction and Acknowledgements
It is difficult to avoid prejudice, following one team and concentrating on what they do. Naturally this leads to seeing life through their eyes, which is permissible perhaps in a book about the year in the life of one team - Hunter Davies in The Glory Game
I D wondered when it would happen, if it happened at all. That moment when my wish to see the girls triumph on the field exceeded the natural desire of an English cricket follower to witness Australia beaten; advanced beyond an author s concern for the most appealing narrative. I d known such a phenomenon on a couple of occasions and could recall specific tipping points. Neither, I hasten to add, in connection to Arsenal, lifelong fandom of whom I had been able to easily forget in favour of reporting deadlines. They were my team but I d never been close to them on a personal level. It had been different, though, covering Slough Town for the local newspaper I worked for, riding the team bus to away games and getting to know the players personalities and peccadilloes. When they had gone two goals up in an FA Cup match at Orient - a tie they contrived to lose in a replay - I d been on my feet at the back of the Brisbane Road media area. Likewise, fellow writers and I who had hopped back and forth across the Atlantic with the London Monarchs American football team in the early nineties elicited, and ignored, a no cheering in the press box warning as we watched a stirring comeback in a play-off game in New York s Giants Stadium.
Having asked, and been allowed, to follow the England women s cricket team at close quarters during what promised to be a historic year, it didn t take long for me to become aware of my partiality. About half an hour of the first match, in fact.
Somerset s ground at Taunton was already close to being full as I made my way from the England dressing room, where I had watched the early overs, to the press box, where I knew I could make myself a cup of tea. The buzz and chatter around the boundary made it feel like a grand occasion, an atmosphere befitting the first morning of the Ashes, regardless of the gender of the participants. England had already taken a wicket, a catch by Charlotte Edwards, and as I stood by the kettle Katherine Brunt, the quick-tempered and fiercely passionate fast bowler who I had quickly realised was the emotio