Derbyshire Cricket Yearbooks

In the next few days I should be taking delivery of the 2008 Derbyshire Yearbook, an indispensable buy in the early season.

I got my first in 1970 and it was a special edition, the centenary issue. There were loads of extra articles in it from players and personalities from the club's history and I found it absolutely fascinating. They were only names to me at that point, but the stories of matches many years before left me completely enthralled, and I wanted to read more.

Every year from then on I would buy the new edition and read accounts of matches I'd seen and those that I wish I had, at the same time "enjoying" obituaries of club stalwarts and reading about their feats. I started to scour shops for older editions, but in those pre-ebay years struggled to get anything prior to 1965.

I struck gold with an auction in Nottingham when I picked up a collection of 1957-63 for a relative pittance, then managed to pick up 1955 and 56 from a cricket book dealer. Finally the Holy Grail was mine after several years of searching, and I got hold of the 1954 edition for the remarkable price of a fiver from a second hand book shop!

For many years the book was under the auspices of Messrs Peach and Dawn, and they were really entertaining, if slightly austere. When the late (and much missed) Stan Tacey took over, they perhaps reached a peak, with an increased number of articles (some penned by myself!) and a high level of statistical gold from David Baggett.

When David took over for a brief spell I felt the yearbook wasn't quite as good, with greater emphasis on league cricket and fewer articles. Last year saw something of a revolution, with the old style design of A5 abandoned for a new, all colour brochure in A4 format. A few traditionalists were appalled, I thought that it was great.

The only problem is that my run of yearbooks on the shelf in the loft now looks less standardised - it takes pride of place over my Wisden collection - but the plus side is that the yearbook took much longer to read and there were some really good articles from such excellent journalists as Gerald Mortimer and Mark Eklid. Full credit should go to Tom Holdcroft, who not only does a terrific job with the club web site and many other duties around the club, but managed, in his first year, to set a new benchmark in quality.

Nice job Crofty! Now, I must look out that credit card and get this year's edition to fill the space on the shelf.

Memo to self - must get a new shelf in time for next year...