Alan Hill (author)

Hill grew up in Yorkshire, and worked as a journalist, first in Yorkshire, then in London, where he joined Hayter's Sports Agency.^[1] He won The Cricket Society/MCC Book of the Year award twice: in 1986 for Hedley Verity: A Portrait of a Cricketer, and in 1991 for Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro.^[2]

Reviewing Herbert Sutcliffe in Wisden, John Arlott called Hill's biographies "distinguished", "right in subject, treatment and content", and added: "Mr Hill's style is both balanced and unfussy; he knows when to state and when to quote ... he constantly leads the reader to think, thus heightening both his concentration and his interest."^[3] Reviewing Daring Young Men for Cricinfo, Rob Steen called Hill "a nostalgist of occasional elegance and vast industry".^[4] In Wisden in 2003 Frank Keating said, "Down the years, the diligent cuttings-librarian Hill has been a productive cottage industry, doing the game proud with a succession of fond and important studies".^[5]

Alan Hill lived and worked in the Mid Sussex village of Lindfield for the last 50 years of his life.^[6] He and his wife Betty, who predeceased him by seven days, had no children.^[1]

• The Family Fortune: A Saga of Sussex Cricket (1978)
• A Chain of Spin Wizards (1983)
• Hedley Verity: A Portrait of a Cricketer (1986)
• Johnny Wardle: Cricket Conjuror (1988)
• Les Ames (1990)
• Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro (1991)
• Bill Edrich: A Biography (1994)
• Peter May: The Authorised Biography (1996)
• Jim Laker: A Biography (1998)
• The Bedsers: Twinning Triumphs (2001)
• Brian Close: Cricket's Lionheart (2002)
• Daring Young Men: The Story of England's Victorious Tour of Australia and New Zealand, 1954-55 (2005)
• Tony Lock: Aggressive Master of Spin (2008)
• The Valiant Cricketer: The Biography of Trevor Bailey (2012)