Overview

A Thing of Beauty: The Founding of the Sydney Cricket Ground is an exquisite two-volume work that tells the remarkable story of how a small group of men turned land that was once a mix of sand and swamp into the finest cricket ground in the world. Both volumes are published in association with Venues NSW and the SCG and is written by Geoff Armstrong, who has been described as 'Australia's pre-eminent sports historian'. In Volume 1, Armstrong reveals how the men who grew the ground quickly learned that maintaining, let along improving, a major sports arena is an expensive business. They needed entertainment that brought money through the gate, which meant that from the start of the 1880s sports such as cycling and football and events such as school carnivals and fireworks displays took place alongside cricket from the 1880s. Some aspects of the story told in Volume 1 are familiar to SCG stalwarts, such as the ongoing battles with the NSW Cricket Association and the building of the iconic Members Stand. Other parts, such as the great cricket riot of 1879, Managing Trustee Philip Sheridan's crucial role in the birth of the Ashes and how rugby union and cycling rose to prominence in the 1880s are not.

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9780648733171

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Author Information

Geoff Armstrongis the author of the definitive biography of Phar Lap and the story of Phar Lap's Melbourne Cup (both with Peter Thompson), and the centenary histories of cricket's Sheffield Shield, St George rugby league and the Police Association of NSW. He has written or edited several best-selling cricket books, including titles by Steve Waugh, David Boon, Bob Simpson, Mike Whitney, Ian Healy, Ricky Ponting and Michael Bevan, The 100 Greatest Cricketers, ESPN's Legends of Cricket, The People's Game: Australia in International One-Day Cricket (with Mark Gately) and Top 10s of Australian Test Cricket (with Ian Russell). He also helped produce the official histories of the NSWRL and ARL, books with well-known sporting identities such as Anna Meares, Wayne Bennett, Gordon Bray, Mal Meninga, Ralph Doubell, Laurie Lawrence, Nova Peris, Wayne Pearce and Arthur Beetson, and the annual SCG Sporting Diary (from 2018 to 2026).

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