Book signing at Fenner’s on 5th July 2023
Nigel Fenner will be signing his book ‘Cambridge Sport: in Fenner’s Hands’ at Fenner’s on 5th July 2023. Please feel free to come along to meet Nigel.
175 years since Frank Fenner founded Fenner’s Cricket Ground.
Local tobacconist, Frank Fenner founded Fenner’s Cricket Ground in 1848, 175 years ago. He was 36 years old.
By way of celebration Nigel Fenner, related to Frank, will be signing and selling copies of his recently published book Cambridge Sport: in Fenner’s Hands in the cricket pavilion at the tea interval on Wednesday 5th July, day two of the 4-day Varsity cricket match between Oxford and Cambridge Universities, held at Fenner’s Ground. Entry to the ground is free.
Nigel will also display a much-treasured possession belonging to Frank, of a large 1849 print of a ‘cricket match between Sussex and Kent, at Brighton’, where Frank stands front left alongside the most important cricket players and administrators of the mid nineteenth century. This reflected not only his skill, as Cambridge’s first star player, but also in being able to bring Town and Gown [the University] players together to play in the same team, resulting in Cambridge being one of the best teams in the country for at least 20 years across the mid nineteenth century. This was when Town versus Gown tensions were so high.
Following the opening of Fenner’s Ground, Frank continued pioneering sports provision, such as athletics, including the installation of a cinder track, as well as a gymnasium (for boxing etc), and the first ‘sporting hub’ located on the Market, fronted by his tobacco shop, where he organised and hosted committee meetings for sports clubs / events, took membership subscriptions and entry fees, and advertised sports events. Naturally young students arriving in Cambridge for the first time would have been drawn towards such provision knowing too that somehow Frank had the tacit support of the University given he would be ‘seen surrounded by a posse of college dons … eager to hear his manly and generous deductions’.
Unfortunately, it all appears to have gone wrong for Frank, resulting in him leaving Cambridge in the early 1860s, so living the last third of his life in the West Country, with his only legacy today being named after a Cambridge cricket ground. However thanks to Nigel’ new book, Frank deserves far greater recognition and praise, very nicely summarised by Derek Pringle (Ex England and Cambridge University cricketer, today author and journalist) and reviewer of Cambridge Sport: in Fenner’s Hands
Driven by its famous university, Cambridge is an acknowledged leader in art and science, yet who knew its role as the crucible for so many of today’s sports and games? ….. Nigel Fenner [shares] how this sporting prowess evolved and how much of it can be linked to his relative the Victorian cricketer, entrepreneur and Cambridge denizen, Frank Fenner. Rich with detail, ‘In Fenner’s Hands,’ like the weathered appendages themselves, points, ushers and guides us through modern sport’s birth and adolescence.
Other book reviews.
Mike Petty MBE (Cambridgeshire Researcher, Lecturer & Historian)
A well-written and well-illustrated addition to Cambridge’s history…..and a worthy tribute to Frank Fenner and Cambridge’s sporting legacy.
Richard Lawrence (Reviews Editor – The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians)
This account of Frank Fenner and his legacy in Cambridge is a most unusual book, which I very much enjoyed. Running through it, like a golden thread, is the character of Fenner, but this is more than a conventional biography, as it also embraces the history of the city and university of Cambridge, their impact on the sporting world, and in particular the man who played such a large part in the development of this sporting tradition.
About the author. Nigel Fenner came to Cambridge to train as a teacher, also acquiring a University football Blue. Following a career in teaching with young offenders, adults with disabilities and more recently young people excluded from school, he established Cambridge Sports Tours in 2017 which is where the contents of Cambridge Sport: in Fenner’s Hands were identified, explored and now written about. This is why the book is also structured as a walking tour from Castle Hill (Chapter 1) to Fenner’s Cricket Ground (chapter 22).
Quality of the book. The 1st edition of Cambridge Sport: in Fenner’s Hands was published 1st May 2023 and is 315 pages long with 150 illustrations, many colour, and over 800 references. The book is hard back with the pages glued and stitched. The book costs £27 (plus postage and packing).
A ‘look inside’ the book. Go to https://www.cambridgesportstours.co.uk/book-for-sale to view a selection of pages and illustrations, as well as an extended summary of the book’s contents.
Now available to buy at Cambridge University Press bookshop.
https://www.cambridgebookshop.co.uk/products/cambridge-sport-in-fenners-hands
Nigel Fenner contact details. Email: nigel@cambridgesportstours.co.uk / Mobile: 07850 496 314.
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