Bradman c Allen b Larwood 8

Ordinarily you might not expect a heavy defeat ultimately for your home nation to represent one of your happiest memories following a sport you love but being at Old Trafford cricket ground in 1988 as the formidable and all-conquering Windies side of that era demolished England yet again (most of the team were veterans of the infamous Blackwash tour four years earlier and as such exalted company) felt like an enormous privilege.

I'm not sure how much the ticket was back then but it was worth every penny.

Close up and personal as opposed to lounging about on the sofa in the living room at home in Telscombe Cliffs and Crowborough before that (two areas I can intimately recollect having spent much of my youth there glued to the BBC coverage as it was then with the only thing missing being my having food passed to me Hannibal Lecter-like on a tray through a serving hatch so I didn't miss a ball) I had a fantastic day out and in my mind's eye it's a vivid time that feels like it happened yesterday as the old saying goes.

Entertained royally by my fellow fans with their earthy Manc humour who in the previous few days had been presented with a gift in the form of the tubby and neatly-bearded Mike Gatting who was newly released from his duties as the England skipper after his shenanigans with a hotel barmaid (they teased him mercilessly over it) I was in heaven really from a cricketing point of view.

As he patrolled the boundary edge near the City End scoreboard he could have very easily filled several fruit bowls many times over with what was being pelted at him from all angles and falling to the ground around, what had been just two years earlier as a victorious Ashes captain in Australia, golden boots that had suddenly become feet of clay.

He denied any impropriety naturally and nothing was proven but he'd been badly damaged by a story that he had invited in a woman who was not his wife into his hotel room.

To his credit he took it all in very good heart and played along although maybe in hindsight this was because he knew he had nothing more to lose as the team's main man having been deposed shortly before and was just glad to be back in the reckoning as a team member.

This was, after all, a more puritanical period in the history of the game in the UK with less forgiving selectors and team stability was hardly a prized asset in those days.

You had one bad game on or off the pitch and that could be your lot for a while.

Largely a wide-eyed and innocent 17 year old who'd never witnessed this sort of thing before as the aforementioned telly feed back then was not as intrusive and as pervasive into the murky goings on in the outfield as it is in 2011 I was able to pull my eyes away from this comical sideshow for long enough to enjoy the highlight of the day for me which was Mr Viv Richards (later to be Sir) echoing his sublime one day knock of 184 on this ground four years earlier with one here of 47 which he compiled beautifully in what seemed to be less than five minutes.

Blink and you missed another boundary (five fours and a massive six during this innings) it was that good.

You almost literally felt that ducking for cover should have been printed on the back of your ticket as advice in the event that the Antiguan ever got into his stride or to bring a hard hat etc.

Never mind that he made an otherwise decent England bowling attack against other nations look like a bunch of five year olds tossing up tennis balls to him (underarm too) I was just in awe of the man and as said before was prescient enough to know that, with my own eyes, I was viewing something really very special.

I also recall wondering if this is what, to some degree, it had been like for all those England sides during the twenties, thirties and forties who had had to come up against and attempt to overcome The Don as the Australian public called Donald Bradman (another to be knighted later on in life) who is unlikely to ever be beaten, statistically anyway, as the greatest batsman to ever walk out to the middle.

If so it must have been both scary for them from a professional perspective as, like Viv, he could induce severe bouts of self-doubt at your own ability surely and very frustrating as it can't be much fun chasing a ball around a field for most of the day which more often than not extended into a second day.

Anyway I feel it gave me an inkling of what it might have been like and in this light my admiration for the England team that had tamed the mighty Aussie and his other ten teammates (relatively speaking as he still averaged 56 odd in the series) during the extremely controversial Ashes Tour of 1932-33 (far, far better known as the Bodyline Tour) went up even more.

England won 4-1.

My interest had been stirred up three years before by an Australian-produced made for TV drama series which chronicled the events of Bodyline that was shown by the Beeb to promote the home Ashes series of 1985.

In spite of it being riddled with a myriad of historical, factual and technical inaccuracies like, for instance, the England wicketkeeper standing up to the stumps when a fast bowler was on it was nonetheless very watchable and really just brought that era and that series back to life to a wider audience as in the minds of the cricketing public it had never really faded.

As a newly cynical teenager and wannabe TV critic I remember being curious about what the main protagonists on the England side (as featured by the makers) were really like as even in my more innocent mind I still recognised severe Aussie bias heavily in favour of their players (whenever the actor playing Bradman appeared in the field a halo-effect would seem to envelop him in the guise of a hot and very shiny summer's day in Oz) and felt angry on behalf of my compatriots that they were getting the thin end of a very syrupy wedge.

Apparently the 81 year old Harold Larwood in his home in Sydney woud receive fresh hate mail and irate calls from Australians who somehow got the impression that the series was still happening at that time and had no idea that he was in his dotage and feared that he was about to inflict even more punishment on their nation's batsmen.

All this I know from reading the award-winning biography of Harold Larwood which came out a few years ago written by the acclaimed sports writer Duncan Hamilton who had previously made you sympathise greatly for the maverick and eccentric former boss of Nottingham Forest Mr Brian Clough.

Plus made you laugh out loud as he widely quoted one of the most un-PC men in the UK back in his managerial heyday in the 70's and 80's.

Having thoroughly enjoyed myself reading that book and missing Cloughie enormously I had high expectations as I started on "Harold Larwood" - a short and simple title which perfectly encapsulates the humble and modest man whose life it is describing.

Finally finally I would get to see things from Harold's side of the fence and really what a shocking and sad tale it came across as.

As the fastest bowler of his era (despite a fitness regime that would mean he'd be not allowed anywhere near the England dressing room of the modern era as I can't see James Anderson preparing to open the bowling having pepped himself up with some snuff and a few pints of beer moments beforehand) he took 33 wickets for not many runs apiece during Bodyline.

Apart from those cold and hard stats he became the target of such vitriol (alongside his skipper Jardine whose tactics he was just following as a loyal team member) from the Aussie public that when the tension reached fever pitch at Adelaide during the Third Test after the Aussie wicketkeeper Oldfield got hit on the head from a rising Larwood delivery he recalls being so in fear for his life that he suggested to a teammate that they grab a stump each and took their chances if the crowd, as looked increasingly likely at one point, jumped the fence en masse and took out their anger on the England team.

Worse was to come though on getting back to England as on top of a very bad injury that he sustained from bowling his heart out on Australian pitches baked rock-hard under a relentless southern hemisphere sun he quite soon became the scapegoat of the powers that be that ran the game in England who wanted to distance themselves from the bad feeling generated in Oz and patch up the relationship with their counterparts 12,000 miles away.

Asked to apologise for Bodyline Larwood refused on principle.

Consequently Jardine and Larwood were to never play for their country again which led to the former miner from Nottinghamshire growing increasingly despondent as what looked at one point like a glittering career slid into what he saw as a big anti-climax.

Totally disillusioned with forever being tainted by the Bodyline slur from the media Larwood turned his back on the game and eventually took himself and his family to Blackpool where he struggled manfully to run a corner shop.

One day out of the blue one of his opponents during Bodyline - an Aussie batsman turned journalist called Jack Fingleton - dropped by and after a very merry afternoon in a nearby pub convinced Harold that he could make a new life for himself in the country that a generation before had reviled him.

As in England Larwood got on with things and was able, via an aborted stint in journalism and other work, to make a decent living for himself and lay to rest some of the Bodyline ghosts to the point where he came to feel more Australian than English he has said.

Reading the book about this most humble of lives during which he had to endure so much ridicule and bile despite being very good at what he did well ie bowling very fast and living in a modern era in which calling the club mascot a legend appears to be a given almost I felt like it'd be a very good thing if I could become one of Doctor Who's companions and be able to return to the 1930's and relive that period.

It'd have just been so refreshing I think and as at Old Trafford in the late 80's I could have seen for myself a true sportsman at the very peak of his powers as the following extract illustrates.

In a county match between Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire a bowler called Smith had bowled bouncers at Larwood's teammates which meant of course that Harold would exact revenge.

"Larwood's opening ball reared past Smith's face. He didn't see it, but felt the cold air as it rushed past him. The second took the edge as Smith backed off towards square leg. The ball shot towards gully, where Sam Staples caught it on the bounce. Smith began to pull off his gloves and walk off. 'Wait a minute,' Staples shouted. 'It was a bump ball. I didn't catch it'. 'Yes, you fucking well did,' said Smith, not daring to look back."

A sentiment shared by many an Australian I'm sure by the end of Bodyline ... well bowled Harold I say and rest in peace as to my mind he's a true English folk hero and one day he'll hopefully receive an even greater accolade than the MBE the Queen gave him not long before his death sixteen years ago aged nearly 91 when Lord's, the home of cricket, unveils a portrait of him in their hallowed Long Room.

For me and for Harold beyond the grave that would be the biggest honour he could get if you read the book.

Please do.

Even if you know nothing about cricket.

http://youtu.be/G8JyGUe_2t4