Post by Jon on Dec 17, 2022 21:29:57 GMT
I never met Roger Mann. I wish I had.
The highlight of the digital edition of Torbay Weekly has not been its second-rate Torquay United reporting, but the weekly memoires of Roger. If you have missed them , catch up on them here:
edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=8add7d88-5e68-4822-a1dc-66e94eafaf85
He was a man who never ceased promoting sport in and around Torbay and delighted in the camaraderie that sport can bring.
He was a man who had ridiculously ambitious sporting dreams, but had the energy, the contacts, the brains and the know-how to make his ridiculous dreams come true!
I did message him to tell him how much I enjoyed his column and got a nice reply back. I subsequently bought his book on Amazon :
www.amazon.co.uk/Meadow-Chapel-Hill-Cross/dp/1803131756
Now he and I were probably the two people in the world who knew most about the history of Cricketfield Road and the early days of Torquay CC. If I had written a book on it (which I would never have got round to!), it would be have been bland factual fare.
Roger, on the other hand, came up with a part-fact part-fiction masterpiece where he imagined that he nodded off watching Barton CC play and dreamt that he was a mid-nineteenth century Plymouth-based umpire. He then recounted his experiences at actual matches played at Newton Abbot and Torquay based on real facts and giving a wonderful authentic idea of how cricket really was in this far-off days - all expertly researched.
I meant to contact him to tell him how much I enjoyed the book. Sometimes I curse my tendency to procrastinate.
The highlight of the digital edition of Torbay Weekly has not been its second-rate Torquay United reporting, but the weekly memoires of Roger. If you have missed them , catch up on them here:
edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=8add7d88-5e68-4822-a1dc-66e94eafaf85
He was a man who never ceased promoting sport in and around Torbay and delighted in the camaraderie that sport can bring.
He was a man who had ridiculously ambitious sporting dreams, but had the energy, the contacts, the brains and the know-how to make his ridiculous dreams come true!
I did message him to tell him how much I enjoyed his column and got a nice reply back. I subsequently bought his book on Amazon :
www.amazon.co.uk/Meadow-Chapel-Hill-Cross/dp/1803131756
Now he and I were probably the two people in the world who knew most about the history of Cricketfield Road and the early days of Torquay CC. If I had written a book on it (which I would never have got round to!), it would be have been bland factual fare.
Roger, on the other hand, came up with a part-fact part-fiction masterpiece where he imagined that he nodded off watching Barton CC play and dreamt that he was a mid-nineteenth century Plymouth-based umpire. He then recounted his experiences at actual matches played at Newton Abbot and Torquay based on real facts and giving a wonderful authentic idea of how cricket really was in this far-off days - all expertly researched.
I meant to contact him to tell him how much I enjoyed the book. Sometimes I curse my tendency to procrastinate.
