Simon1252

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Cricket and Englishness

I came across your project via the edits of other people, and was pointed towards you by Oline73. However the project ends up being organised on wikipedia (and I am not involved in the education projects at all, so don't know the correct process), I would make a couple of (non-wikipedia) suggestions. I'm not familiar with your main text, but I have watched "Fire in Babylon", which really only has part of the story and dismisses West Indies cricket before 1976 as lightweight. There was far more to it (and I don't mean from a cricket viewpoint, but a political one) than the film even hints at. Second, I cannot recommend highly enough Beyond a Boundary by C. L. R. James. I imagine this would tick many, many of your boxes even given its age. Hope this helps, and good luck. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:14, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much for these suggestions -- we will in fact be discussing some excerpts from CLR James' book in class next week. I find the political consciousness of the West Indian cricketers of the 70s to be very compelling, and would welcome any further ideas for how to follow the thread in an earlier period Simon1252 (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The best bet is CLR James. There's quite a bit in the book about his own experiences of an English-style education, and its relation to cricket (he was a very decent cricketer). But the best bits are the chapters on Wilton St Hill, George Headley and in particular Learie Constantine. There's also a large part about "political" selections, and how light-skinned/white cricketers were chosen for the big matches in preference to black players. In addition (this earlier period is something of a fascination of mine!), the biographies of Constantine by Gerald Howat or Peter Mason really cover his political thinking and development. The Headley and Constantine articles on here are Featured Articles, and St Hill is a Good article. A lot of work has gone into them, and they are a pretty complete summary of the sources and thinking on those men. Please let me know if I can help any further. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

What do you make of the section on WG Grace (and Thomas Arnold, etc)? I had planned to discuss this part, since of course the real focus of the class is on Englishness (to be honest, I'm not at all familiar with the rest of the book). By the way, I re-watched the first half of the film yesterday in light of your comments, and was struck by a reference -- perhaps from Viv Richards -- to how the earlier generation (i.e. the generation of the Three Ws) had been inspirational "pioneers": I'm not sure that the film really dismisses them. There does seem to have been a radicalization of consciousness in the 60s, wouldn't you say?Simon1252 (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it's a very good section in that it's interesting and well-written. However, I'm neither familiar enough with Grace nor with the general period in English history to say whether this is still accepted as a valid view. I've certainly never seen some of his arguments put forward elsewhere, yet he writes very well on Grace as a cricketer. As "academic" cricket writing is relatively rare, James' views tend to be regurgitated quite a lot by other writers to prove a point, but I'm not sure how well they stand up by themselves. For me, the value in James is his writing on the West Indies, and it's relationship with England (which seems to chime with your class).

I think the radicalisation came in the 50s; for some like Constantine and James, it came somewhat earlier. There is probably a link to be made with Marcus Garvey somewhere, but maybe that's going beyond your scope. And I think it began before the three Ws: only Worrell was really "political" at the time. But I think the film is slightly dismissive of everyone and everything that happened before 1976 (there's a comment about how the team played nicely and how everyone loved them, but they always lost. Rubbish!). There's a really interesting story to tell long before that, and I would start with James and Constantine. Or even poor old Wilton St Hill. Richards and Lloyd may have been political, but they were political in independent countries; these earlier men were political at a time when that was effectively not allowed, and they were railing against those in authority who were telling them that they were inferior (explicitly or implicitly). Sarastro1 (talk) 00:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Lauren Ashcraft (March 28)

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Sulfurboy (talk) 02:57, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Lauren Ashcraft (June 7)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by DGG was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Lauren Ashcraft and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Lauren Ashcraft, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "{{Db-g7}}" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
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DGG ( talk ) 02:45, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Lauren Ashcraft

Hello, Simon1252. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Lauren Ashcraft".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:58, 7 December 2020 (UTC)