Matt Appleby, also published as Matthew Appleby, is a British journalist whose books cover cricket, gardening, and the collecting that surrounds the game. He trained as a journalist in New Zealand and has written for cricket outlets including Wisden, ESPNcricinfo, and Sky Sports. His gardening journalism includes work for Horticulture Week, and his experience as a primary school teacher helped inform his writing about gardening with children.
Appleby’s cricket books often approach the sport through objects and memories. How to Be a Cricket Fan follows the life and collections of Edgar Appleby, while Lost Cricket Stickers uses a familiar album to revisit players and an earlier county season. His gardening books range from weekly activities for families to a detailed account of cultivating a garden without animal products. Across those subjects, everyday practices provide the starting point for larger personal and social histories.
Matt Appleby Books
| Book | Year | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Lost Cricket Stickers | 2024 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Clough, the Nottingham Forest Years | 2026 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
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Appleby’s reporting career combines specialist knowledge with subjects outside elite competition. His cricket journalism includes earlier writing about New Zealand Test captains, while his horticultural work addresses growers, collectors, and families. The two cricket books below concentrate on what survives around a sport: albums, cards, books, memorabilia, and the recollections attached to meeting players. Those materials provide evidence of how spectators build a continuing relationship with the game.
Cricket Books
Lost Cricket Stickers: The Search for 1983's World of Cricket Sticker Album Heroes: Appleby revisits the players featured in the 1983 World of Cricket sticker album, tracking down a representative from each county. The search connects memories of collecting with the season portrayed in the album and the lives that followed. Interviews and recollections examine what happened to familiar cricketers after their playing days and how county cricket changed in the intervening decades. Published in 2024.
The 1983 album provides a fixed starting point for conversations conducted many years later. Moving from one county to another allows Appleby to compare different experiences of the same cricketing period. The resulting account includes both the players as supporters remember them and the people they became once the original stickers had ceased to be current.
How to Be a Cricket Fan: A Life in Fifty Artefacts from WG to Wisden: Through fifty objects, Appleby tells the story of cricket enthusiast and collector Edgar Appleby. Memorabilia, books, and meetings with players connect a life beginning with wartime evacuation to a lasting involvement in the game. The account follows collecting alongside family circumstances, financial difficulties, and the search for a satisfying working life, showing how cricket became part of a personal history beyond the boundary. Published in 2023.
The objects include the books and collectibles through which cricket’s past is preserved, from the influence of W. G. Grace to Wisden. Encounters with figures such as Fred Trueman and Ian Botham place Edgar’s collecting life alongside recognizable personalities. John Arlott’s writing also forms part of the story. The book follows the collector through changes in fortune, making his relationship with the game part of a biography rather than a catalog of possessions.
Other Books
The Children's Garden: Loads of Things to Make and Grow: Appleby offers fifty-two seasonal gardening projects for children and families, with an activity for each week of the year. Growing plants and vegetables accompanies nature trails, crafts, and cooking, connecting the garden with practical learning. Drawing on his experience as a teacher and parent, the book encourages children to explore outdoor spaces through manageable projects rather than treating gardening only as routine cultivation. Published in 2016.
The Super Organic Gardener: Everything You Need to Know About a Vegan Garden: This guide explains how to garden without relying on animal products, including animal-based fertilizers and other conventional inputs. Appleby describes approaches to planting, soil improvement, and sharing a growing space with wildlife. The book considers gardens of different sizes, from restricted urban spaces to larger plots, and connects practical choices about cultivation with the principles of vegan and organic gardening. Published in 2019.