Steve Smith

Hi I am Steve Smith. Many years ago I was reading a biography about S. F. Barnes, England's legendary golden age bowler. It was during this that I came across the name John Barton King, a swing bowler with a team called the Gentlemen of Philadelphia. Intrigued I decided to buy his biography only to find, to my disappointment, that there wasn't one.

During the Covid lock-down I decided to write the biography I always wanted to buy. Apart from a couple of short children's stories it was my first ever book. Whilst I was writing the book I became interested in King's Gentlemen of Philadelphia teammates. Books existed already for the tours that the Philadelphians made of the UK, they played 39 matches on three UK tours in 1897, 1903 and 1908. The Philadelphians played a total of 88 first-class matches between 1878 and 1913 but, apart from the UK tours, little had been written about the rest.

Once the Bart King book was finished the next project was obvious; a series entitled "Cricket - the Philadelphia story" which would progressively document the other 46 first-class matches played in Philadelphia against English, Australian and Irish visitors; together with three matches on another tour of Jamaica. The first of the series "Cricket- the Philadelphia story . . . the Australians of 1878 was published in 2024 by Red Rose Cricket Books. Subsequent books of the same series are now being made available on Amazon.

Along the way I have diverted slightly into other areas of North American cricket as a result of information unearthed whilst researching the Philadelphia books. So you can also read about Staten Island Cricket Club, The Australians at Sheffield Park, The first overseas cricket tour of them all in 1859. Above all I hope you will enjoy getting to know the Philadelphians. It truly was a fascinating period of cricketing history concerning a team that could, for a time, compete with some of the best, famously beating three Australian Test teams, two of them by an innings.