Cricket in Madrid in the 1920's

The writer Gabriel Pérez has sent us an excerpt from Álvaro d’Ors, symphony of a life, his new biography which is hoped to be published by the end of this year, where the game of cricket is mentioned. He also sent us a photograph of the biographee - see below - suitably attired for the occasion, taken somewhere in Madrid in 1930.

Excerpt from Álvaro d’Ors, symphony of a life:
”As far as cricket is concerned – in the twenties the game was unknown in Spain – there is photographic evidence: Álvaro d’Ors is captured smartly dressed, as was the cricketing style at the time, wearing a navy blue jacket with white bordering and white trousers also. He was so keen on the game that he even tried to publicise it in an interview where he is styled as the man who brought the sport to Spain:
“Sport played an important part in my formal education, although I was always more inclined towards reading, writing and talking, so I was never anything more than a very average sportsman. Having said that, and because I was a bit of an anglophile in my youth, at the end of the twenties I appeared in the sports section of certain newspapers as “the man who introduced cricket to Spain”. My ambitions were soon shattered as cricket has to be played on grass and demands a phlegmatic character that we Spaniards do not possess.”

We thank the author for sending us this information and look forward to seeing his book in the libraries.