The Spitfire · https://thespitfire.news/features/the-stories-of-colin-blythe-184975
The Stories of Colin Blythe
11.11.26, 10:28 Updated 11.11.26, 16:42
Colin Blythe’s story should make for a compelling tragedy. A working class hero who defied a debilitating medical condition to become one of Kent’s all-time greats, only to suffer a horrific death in the service of King and County. To mark Remembrance Day, The Spitfire looks at the two biographies dedicated to the man whose memorial is a landmark at the St. Lawrence - and the acrimony that followed their publication.
RUNNING LATE
Colin Blythe biographies are like South Eastern Trains. You wait 88 years for one, and then another one comes along four years later. Christopher Scoble’s Lament for a Legend was published in 2005, almost 90 years after Blythe last played cricket. It received a lukewarm review from Howard Milton in that year’s KCCC annual and got an even frostier reception from Blythe’s descendant John Blythe Smart, whose self-published The Real Colin Blythe came out four years later.
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Fred Atkins
EditorFred Atkins is a former Kent Messenger sports editor and has written several books, including The Spitfire Diaries, an account of Kent's 2021 season and Monty Panesar's "The Full Monty". He has followed KCCC since 1993 and has covered them for the ECB and Wisden since 2021.