The

SWEETEST

ROSE

150 years of Yorkshire County Cricket Club

1863-2013

David Warner

Foreword by David Hopps

Great Northern Books

The rich and detailed history of the world’s most famous cricket club, in all its guts and glory.

The Sweetest Rose traces the story of YCCC from its birth in Sheffield in January, 1863, right up to the current season, covering its entire 150 years. A tale of triumph, trophies and inner turmoil – an enthralling read. The book spotlights the leading personalities attached to the Club, both on and off the field, and seeks to establish exactly what it is that has made it the greatest cricket club in the world. With unequalled access to the club, David Warner has been given the freedom to cover the full unabridged story.

“Writing this history is a task that demands meticulous research, a dogged perseverance and above all a high level of integrity. David Warner is well equipped on all three counts.”

David Hopps, UK editor,

ESPN cricinfo

Yorkshire County Cricket Club was formed on January 8, 1863, and once Lord Hawke had taken over the captaincy a couple of decades later it went on to establish itself as the most famous cricket club in the world.

It has won the County Championship title outright a record 30 times and was joint Champions with Middlesex in 1949. The first success was in 1893 and the most recent was under the captaincy of David Byas in 2001.

Throughout Yorkshire’s turbulent history there have been high peaks and deep troughs, sometimes walking hand-in-hand, as was the case in 1983 when the side finished bottom of the Championship table for the first time, yet managed to lift the John Player League title in the same season.

During the past 150 years, Yorkshire has produced some of the greatest names ever to play the game – Wilfred Rhodes, George Hirst, Hedley Verity, Len Hutton, Herbert Sutcliffe, Fred Trueman, Brian Close, Raymond Illingworth, Geoffrey Boycott, Darren Gough and Michael Vaughan to name but a few.

And they keep on coming, with the likes of Jonathan Bairstow and Joe Root certain to keep the glorious tradition going for many more years yet.

Yorkshire County Cricket Club and those who play for it are a source of passion and pride to countless people around the county. Times have not always been easy and things have rarely run smoothly for long, but the story is a fascinating one – and one which other clubs around the world can only envy.

David Warner has been actively involved in journalism for more than 50 years and for well over half that time he has written extensively on the fortunes of Yorkshire County Cricket Club both on and off the field.

He began work in 1958 as a 16-year-old on the Shipley Guardian, having taken shorthand and typing while in the commercial department at Bingley Technical School.

Two years later he moved to the Bingley office of the Telegraph & Argus and went on to work at the Shipley branch before joining the sports desk at head office.

He covered the Bradford Cricket League for four seasons before becoming the newspaper’s Yorkshire cricket correspondent in 1975, also serving two other titles in the Group – The Yorkshire Evening Press and The Northern Echo.

Selected as the Yorkshire Newspaper Society’s Sports Writer of the Year in 1983 he was joint winner of the award the following year. In the first of those two years he was also highly commended in the British Sports Journalism Awards promoted by The Sports Council and the Sports Writers’ Association of Great Britain.

Married, with one son, Warner lives in the Bradford suburb of Baildon where he was born. He has been editor of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yearbook since 2009.