Paul Winslow was old enough to know better when
cricket finally gripped him in its thrall. Having
ignored its myriad charms for years, he let his guard
down and found himself conscripted into the Barmy Army,
blindly following the England cricket team to Belfast,
Barbados, Brisbane and beyond to feed his new addiction.
His career stalled, homelessness ensued and
relationships came under strain, but none of it mattered
as long as there was a cricket tour to go on. Going
Barmy is not a history of the Barmy Army; it is a story
of gradual cricket obsession and a personal insight into
what life is really like with the Barmy Army, both on
tour and as a business. This unique consideration of a
sporting and cultural phenomenon opens the door on the
songwriting, the camaraderie and the relationship with
the players, one of whom, England off-spinner Graeme
Swann, who wrote the foreword and says: “I’m glad that
Winslow has written this book. Hopefully it will give
you an insight into the life of the ‘real’, and often
misunderstood Barmy Army. They are not hooligans, they
are not troublemakers, they are just cricket nuts who
fly the flag for this brilliant country we live in. They
are the very heartbeat of our Test team abroad. And I
love them for it.”
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