Richard Asher’s Posh Sports Precinct

I was born on the right side of the tracks in the English-speaking bit of apartheid South Africa. I also went to a traditional boys’ primary school (where I briefly had Jacques Kallis for company) in Cape Town. So it was inevitable that cricket and rugby union would grab my attention early. I instinctively turned up my nose at football, preferring golf and motorsport as sources of additional weekend entertainment.

I didn’t realise it until many years later, but the four sports I loved had one thing in common: wealthy British people are central to their stories. They play them at Eton. They play them under the auspices of exclusive clubs. At least one of them can’t be played at all without exorbitant sums of money at one’s disposal. They’re posh sports.

I’m a child of the eighties. In those vivid early years finding my way as a sports fan, I was gripped by Senna versus Prost, Rainey versus Schwantz, Norman versus Faldo. And with South Africa outside the international sports fold in team sports, Western Province’s fortunes against Transvaal (in cricket) and Northern Transvaal (in rugby) could make or break a weekend. To watch Garth le Roux charging in to bowl in a Benson & Hedges Night Series game at the old Newlands, with its willows, oaks and braai smoke, was to get a taste of heaven. And joining the track invasion after Nigel Mansell’s British Grand Prix win in 1991 — my mother thought I was lost forever — was priceless.

We weren’t posh enough for me to actually do motor-racing, and I didn’t fancy all the fitness work and injury involved in rugby. So, when it came to participation, I valiantly tried my hand at golf and cricket. (I still do, when the weather is right.) But I clearly wasn’t a real jock — I couldn’t make the A team even at Under-12 level. Something told me I’d better find another way to get paid to hang around sports venues. So I became a sports journalist and reported on all of the above.

I’d love you to read on, but if you prefer a video format, check out my CV video here. You can also jump directly to my online journalism portfolio at richardasher.com/journalism.

Credentials

I spent several years as a staff member at the British motorsport weekly, Autosport. I still freelance for them now, two decades later. Though I left before ‘graduating’ to Formula 1 journalist life, I covered loads of international racing including Le Mans, the DTM, Formula 3 and the briefly remarkable A1 Grand Prix series. I saw the likes of Hamilton, Vettel and Rosberg come through the ranks. I also covered the early career of Bruno Senna, who thanked me with this attempt on my life at Snetterton. (I’m the white bib nearest the action. Still taking notes, you may observe.)

Unwilling to get stuck on a single sport like some of the poor sods you’ll find in an F1 paddock, I then became editor of Golf Punk magazine in South Africa. Here’s me swapping cards with a Louis Oosthuizen before playing a round together at his extremely humble home club in Albertinia. It was shortly before his Open Championship triumph at St Andrews.

I also edited the PGA Escapes golf & lifestyle magazine in Australia for a few months. I’d have stayed on, but the stint in Sydney was a working holiday and the visa ran out. Another gig I had Down Under was editing the match programmes for Australia’s home matches that summer. (Here’s me and my creation at the Gabba.) I still write for the programmes each year, albeit as a freelancer.

While we’re on freelancing…I’ve covered test match and World Cup cricket for Supersport and Reuters, plus Currie Cup rugby and European Tour golf for Supersport. I’ve been published by Cricinfo, Cricbuzz, Golf World and Sports Illustrated. I’ve even been commissioned to interview golf pros in Danish — Søren Kjeldsen was my victim at the Shot Clock Masters (below).

Thanks to the arrival of live streaming, I’ve also begun commentating on cricket with more regularity. In fact, I’ve already made my international debut — in the Austria versus Germany women’s international series in 2020. Here’s me behind the mic for the European Cricket Network that same year.

Now I’m ‘building my own brand’ here on Substack, where I plan to cover all the sports I know so well - at times with a South African flavour. I’ll throw in some MotoGP coverage too, because that’s a motorsport paddock I’d like to spend time in one day.

Red balls only

If you’re a grumpy old git like me, and share my habit of rolling my eyes at the IPL, you’ll be delighted to hear that I’m only going to cover Test match cricket on this platform. We all have to make choices regarding what we do with our limited time, and there’s far too much cricket around the place to pretend to know what’s going on everywhere. So I’m sticking with covering the game’s best format - but there will be some exceptions for major white ball international series including the World Cup.

Why I hate football

Because if I want to watch a bunch of overpaid actors, I’ll rent a Hollywood film.

And because it’s an outlet for base hooligans so cretinously daft that they need a sport where the scores stay in single digits.

Why should you subscribe

You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox. Will it choke the thing? No way, because writing this stuff takes hours of work. Producing more than one a week is unlikely. At least until people start buying me a lot more virtual coffees!