Sport

John Young explores the social ‘season’ of London’s cricket crowds. *This article first appeared in The Weekender, 2008.* There is a small patch of grass in west London that on one day of the year assumes an importance vastly disproportionate to its size. This is the Coronation Garden in the Lord’s cricket ground. On the Saturday of the Lord’s Test match this little plot – no bigger than a tennis court – becomes the focus of the English Season. This is where the great and the

The boyhood home of CLR James. PHOTO: John Young. *First published in [Wisden Cricket Monthly](https://web.archive.org/web/20200918133121/https://www.wisden.com/wisden-cricket-monthly), May 2015.* *There is a C.L.R. James Institute in New York and a library in the London borough of Hackney but it’s hard to find signs of the author of cricket’s greatest book in his home town. John Young searched high and low.* “Tunapuna at the beginning of this century was a small town of abo

 Temba Bavuma often returns to inspire Langa’s young cricketers but for them to advance in the game, their schools will need support. PHOTO: John Young *First published in [Mail & Guardian](https://web.archive.org/web/20210725090821/https://mg.co.za/author/john-young-author) 29 April 2016.* Sports’ Minister Fikile Mbalula’s announcement this week that prominent sporting codes may not bid

The late Bob Woolmer always believed in Paul Adams as an attacking force. The former Protea coach watches net practice on the 1998 tour of England at Arundel. Adams is next to Alan Donald, whose 330 test wickets came at a strike rate of 47 balls per wicket. PHOTO: John Young. *First published in Cape Argus, 15 March 2002.* John Young on South Africa’s test spinner. Denys Hobson must have been smiling at Paul Adams’s return to test cricket last weekend. Soon after the Proteas

### The boxing upset of the 70s – and how the Rand Daily Mail almost lost the scoop.  IMAGE: Courtesy of South African National Library. *The Rand Daily Mail’s ‘technology-aided’ scoop on Gerrie Coetzee’s win in Monte Carlo 40 years ago almost never got to print.* Boxing was big in South Africa in the 1970s. And South Africa had some big box

*First published in Travel & Food, Sunday Times, 27 April 2008.* ## Golfing in Wales separates the men from the boys, and the sheep from the sheepish, writes John Young. Dr Johnson said that when a man is tired of London he is tired of life. He also said, “By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.” Which is two parts true and eight parts complete rubbish, as so many famous sayings are. The old cynic once wrote that he was “weary of being at home, an