David Foot (24 April 1929 – 25 May 2021) was a British journalist and historian who wrote extensively on English

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

and the West Country. Foot was born in the Somerset village of East Coker and spent most of his life in Somerset and Gloucestershire. He began his journalistic career with the '' Western Gazette'' in Yeovil before moving on to the ''

Bristol Evening World Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in S ...

''. From 1962 onwards he worked largely as a

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. In the national press he contributed primarily to '' The Guardian'' from 1971 to 2011, writing chiefly on Somerset and Gloucestershire cricket, together with some football reports and theatre reviews. He also wrote a weekly column for the '' Western Daily Press'' for about 20 years. According to Scyld Berry, he was one of the last regional writers. It was "not only the quality of his work, but the speed" with which he wrote that was remarkable.Scyld Berry, "'Footy' cast a light on secret torment of a cricketer's life",

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sport section, page 24, 12 June 2021. Foot's book ''Beyond Bat & Ball'' won the Cricket Society’s Book of the Year award in 1993. Reviewing it in '' Wisden'',

Geoffrey Moorhouse Geoffrey Moorhouse, Royal Geographical Society, FRGS, Royal Society of Literature, FRSL, Doctor of Letters, D.Litt. (29 November 1931 – 26 November 2009) was an English journalist and author. He was born Geoffrey Heald in Bolton and took his ste ...

agreed with the opinion of Dennis Silk in the book's foreword that as a writer Foot "is as good as Robertson-Glasgow at his best". Silk also said: "If the cricket lover is not quite clear about why he loves the game, he will become much clearer after reading this book." The sport journalist Frank Keating called Foot's biographies of

Harold Gimblett Harold Gimblett (19 October 1914 – 30 March 1978) was a cricketer who played for Somerset and England. He was known for his fast scoring as an opening batsman and for the much-repeated story of his debut. In a book first published in 1982 ...

and Wally Hammond "imperishable classics in cricket's canon". Before Gimblett committed suicide, he had entrusted to Foot the tapes he had recorded about his cricket career. By incorporating quotations from those tapes in his biography and revealing Gimblett's mental anguish, Foot "removed our rose-coloured spectacles about cricket" and helped to enable other cricketers such as Peter Roebuck and Marcus Trescothick to speak out about their own mental problems. According to Berry, he was "fascinated by every aspect of life". This was illustrated by his taking on the editorship of the memoir of

Victoria Hughes Victoria Hughes (née Rogers, 22 June 1897 – 30 August 1978) was a British lavatory attendant, and the first of her profession to have an entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', having published her memoirs ''Ladies' Mile'' at ...

, a lavatory attendant who took care of the prostitutes who worked at the lavatories on Bristol Downs. Berry says this was one of Foot's most valuable books. He was "the dearest and most decent of men, because he had acute sensibility for people, and trees, and words". Foot lived in the Bristol suburb of Westbury-on-Trym with his wife Anne. They had a son and a daughter. He died in May 2021, aged 92.

Books

* ''Ladies' Mile'' by

(1977; edited) * ''Gardening My Way'' by John Abrams (1978; edited) * ''Famous Bristolians: And Others Having Strong Associations with the City'' (1979) * ''Viv Richards'' by Viv Richards, with David Foot (1979, 1982) * ''From Grace to Botham: Profiles of 100 West Country Cricketers'' (1980) * ''Zed: Zaheer Abbas'' by Zaheer Abbas, with David Foot (1983) * ''

: Tormented Genius of Cricket'' (1984) * ''Learn Cricket with Viv Richards: A Young Player's Guide'' by Viv Richards, with David Foot (1985) * ''Cricket's Unholy Trinity'' (1985) * ''Sunshine, Sixes and Cider: The History of Somerset Cricket'' (1986) * ''Viv Richards'' (1987) * ''Country Reporter'' (1990) * ''40 Years On: The Story of the

Lord's Taverners The Lord's Taverners is the UK's leading youth cricket and disability sports charity. Its charitable objective is to empower and positively impact the lives of young people facing the challenges of inequality.'. It was founded in 1950 by a group ...

'' (1990) * ''Strange Dorset Stories'' (1991) * ''Somerset Cricket: A Post-War Who's Who'' (1993; with Ivan Ponting) * ''Beyond Bat & Ball: Eleven Intimate Portraits'' (1993) * '' Wally Hammond: The Reasons Why: A Biography'' (1996) * ''Fragments of Idolatry: From " Crusoe" to Kid Berg: Twelve Character Studies'' (2001) * ''Shep: My Autobiography'' by David Shepherd, with David Foot (2001) * ''Sixty Summers: Somerset Cricket since the War'' (2006; with Ivan Ponting) * ''Footsteps from East Coker'' (2010)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foot, David 1929 births 2021 deaths Cricket historians and writers English journalists People from South Somerset (district) 20th-century English historians English biographers 20th-century British journalists 20th-century biographers 20th-century English male writers 21st-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century English male writers