Eric Midwinter, social historian, social policy analyst and writer, has enjoyed a long and successful career involving senior national posts in the public and voluntary sectors. He is the author of over fifty books on a wide range of subjects, many of them adverting to the place of sport and other leisure activities against their social background. He has written extensively on cricket and other sports, and his most recent sporting book, Red Shirts and Roses; the Tale of the Two Old Traffords, about the intertwined stories of Lancashire CCC and Manchester United FC, won the 2005 Times/Cricket Society Book of the Year award.