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Welcome to The Full Toss.
As our strap-line says, we are the voice – or at least a voice – of the English cricket follower. We are the village cricketers debating the latest selection dilemma over a pint after the game. We are the Facebook soap-boxers holding court on whether it should be Ramprakash or Key for the Oval. We are the punters who fork out £60 once a year for a day at the Test. During at least one winter tour, we will have followed entire sessions of play via Ceefax page 341, nervously re-entering the room to see if there’s another line of blue on the screen. We are sceptical about cricket authorities and generally affectionate towards our players. No matter how far ahead England might be in a Test match, we anticipate defeat. We are, perhaps, the grass roots – or at least some of them.
We are hardly the first people to represent this perspective, which is why we stress that The Full Toss is only a voice. Nevertheless, we sense a slight gap in the market. There are two particular inspirations. Firstly, the blizzard of debate and chatter on Facebook and Twitter during the 2009 Ashes – the way a friend would post a provocative status update, about strategy, selection or predictions, and everyone else would then pile in with their two penn’orth. Our aim is to bring those discussions together under one roof. Secondly, our growing sense that cricket insiders, for all their indispensable expertise, sometimes misread or overlook the emotions of ordinary followers. A classic example occurred during the fourth innings of the 2009 Oval Test match. The pundits, knowing from personal experience that Australia had no chance of chasing down the target to win, glibly but correctly assumed the result was a foregone conclusion. At home, it wasn’t quite as simple as that: we still thought we’d lose.
We are of course eager for your input. If there’s something you’d like us to discuss, or if you’re interested in writing something for the site, please get in touch, by e-mailing maxie@thefulltoss.com. You can also call us on 07885 937108.
Meanwhile, thanks for visiting The Full Toss. We hope you like it.
About the editors
Maxie Allen first picked up a bat in 1983, since when his highest score remains 9 (all in singles) and is now the secretary of a cheerful if ineffectual village side from south-west London. He is a radio and TV producer whose occasional writing credits include cricket anthology The New Ball, the Media Guardian (once) and for three years a widely ignored column for bluesq dot com. During his spell as Talksport’s cricket producer he once dined at Geoffrey Boycott’s house – and has dined out on the story ever since.
James Morgan is a freelance copywriter, academic and orthodox (some would say boring) opening batsman. He has written TV and radio advertising scripts for noted cricketing luminaries Carol Vorderman and Caroline Quentin, ghost written articles for celebrity chef Brian Turner, and is currently converting his PhD thesis into a world changing book on US foreign relations (that’s if the sales figures reach double digits). He has taught modern American history at Southampton University, but his real area of expertise is the cover drive. Visit www.customcopywriting.co.uk to find out more about his work. Email james@thefulltoss.com
