Tantrums and brilliance: why WG Grace was the first modern sportsman

In the centenary of the cricketer’s death, Grace’s biographer argues that it’s time to take his legacy seriously

In 1887 a Scottish whisky merchant called Methven Brownlee mistakenly wrote that WG Grace was educated at Rudgway House school in Gloucestershire. It is easy to imagine how Brownlee might have made this error. Brownlee, a friend of Grace, based his biography on a series of interviews at the great cricketer’s Bristol home. Grace liked a drink, and perhaps after a glass or two of Brownlee’s scotch, he mumbled in his Bristol burr what sounded like “Rudgway” rather than “Ridgway”, the school’s real name.

At first glance Brownlee’s slip hardly seems to matter. “Rudgway” has an agreeably bucolic ring, summoning images of the young Gilbert Grace learning the three Rs with the other Gloucestershire farm lads before heading off to the fields. Grace was, after all, of “pure country strain”, according to the broadcaster John Arlott, and possessed a “simple, almost puerile mind”, according to Marylebone Cricket Club’s official history.

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