The author of an absorbing new book about Bradford League cricket is set to make a promotional tour of West Yorkshire next week.

Historian Tony Barker, who was born in Shipley but lives now in Perth, Western Australia, has called his new book Cricket’s Wartime Sanctuary: The First-Class Flight to Bradford.

The book recognises that the league has been more than a famous nursery for Yorkshire players, and holds a unique place in the wider history of cricket.

Sir Jack Hobbs

Now followersof the league are invited to meet him at Saltaire on Sunday, May 24 in the Half Moon at 4.30pm, at Windhill on May 26 (8pm), Idle on June 1 (7.30pm) or at Borders, Birstall on Saturday, May 31 at 2pm where he will be joined for a book signing session by former Yorkshire and England star Bob Appleyard who was a highly-successful Bradford League player.

The compelling book reveals the Bradford League as virtually the only place where professional cricketers could parade their skills in the two world wars.

In the First World War over fifty first-class players joined the world’s greatest bowler, Sydney Barnes, and batsman, Jack Hobbs, in the League. But conflict with the County Club under Lord Hawke meant that scarcely any were Yorkshire players.

With Bradford relatively immune from German bombs, the League attracted close to 100 first-class players in the Second World War -  including the charismatic West Indian Learie Constantine and a host of English Test players, among them Lancashire’s Eddie Paynter and local hero Len Hutton.

Overcoming travel difficulties, and with little chance for practice, the players still drew huge crowds, making the League a major contributor to home-front morale.

Controversy was never far away. Intense competition between clubs almost split the League in the First World War, and there were bitter disputes over the poaching of players and ‘shamateurism’.

In this superbly researched book, Tony Barker has returned to his childhood roots in Yorkshire to reveal the story of the Bradford League and place it in its rightful context as the only significant stage on which leading professionals could continue to display their skills through two World Wars.

Following the inspirational recruitment of Learie Constantine by the Windhill club in 1939, the Bradford League attracted close to 100 first-class players in the Second World War, mirroring earlier experience when more than fifty had followed Sydney Barnes and Jack Hobbs to Bradford in the Great War.

Barker, who was educated at Bradford Grammar School and Sheffield University. His youthful enthusiasm  for Yorkshire cricket and Bradford  League club Saltaire didn’t deter  him from emigrating to Australia  in 1963. He has lived in Sydney,  Melbourne and especially Perth  ever since, except for doctoral research in London in the early  1970s.

He is currently a Senior  Honorary Research Fellow at the  University of Western Australia,  where he lectured in history from 1973 until retirement in 2004. 

His seven previous books include  three on the history of slavery and  antislavery in the British Empire  and United States and the official  histories of cricket and Australian  Rules football in Western Australia:  The WACA: An Australian Cricket  Success Story (1998) and Behind  the Play: A History of Football in  Western Australia Since 1868  (2004). 

League president Keith Moss said: “Tony Barker has filled a void in the League’s history. I cannot commend this delightful and scholarly book too highly.”

CRICKET’S WARTIME SANCTUARY The First-Class Flight to Bradford By TONY BARKER with a foreword by Bob Appleyard, is a 200 page hardback. Published by The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians Blue Bell House, 2-4 Main Street, Scredington, Sleaford, Lincs NG34 0A it costs £20 inc. postage & packing