David Foot, who has died aged 92, broke the rule and achieved a high reputation as an outstanding writer, for the Guardian above all, without ever deserting his Bristol base and not often leaving his beloved West Country. Mostly he did the small occasions, but he feasted on the rumbustious days of Somerset cricket with Ian Botham and Viv Richards in the 1970s and 80s. David was born, to Frank and Margaret Foot, in a thatched cottage in the poetic Somerset village of East Coker. Foot always inspired confidence in his interviewees; it was not normally quite so misplaced. “He was the master of the long essay that really captured a cricketer,” said his good friend the cricket writer Scyld Berry.

Source: The Guardian May 26, 2021 13:30 UTC