BOOK REVIEWS

THREE more classic lockdown titles to enjoy and add to our burgeoning sporting library...

Proud: My Autobiography by Gareth Thomas

In 2009, Gareth Thomas took his bravest step. Though used to tackling man-mountains intent on ripping his head off, Thomas’s biggest challenge was to be honest with himself. He was gay and he decided the time had come to tell the world, so becoming the world’s most prominent athlete to come out as gay.

His secret, he reveals, was slowly killing him. He had grown tired of lying to family and friends and simply wanted to be honest with them. His aggressive, on-field persona had been an attempt to disguise his sexuality, primarily because he believed that people couldn’t possibly assume that the toughest rugby player many of them had ever seen was gay.

This fascinating autobiography confirms that not only was Thomas a fierce competitor, he’s also admirably brave – and now happily content.

Bobby Moore: The Man In Full by Matt Dickinson

Bobby Moore is one of English football’s iconic figures, famed for leading his country to their only World Cup success. His memory has been cherished with such steadfastness that he is regarded as one of our greatest defenders, a flawless character, a man to be admired.

Yet, though lionised following his death from cancer at a desperately early age, he was no saint, but a complicated, fastidious man. His exterior calm and neatness belied an interior clutter, hid his complexities. By identifying his faults, Dickinson’s outstanding biography succeeds in making Moore sound more human; it is well worth reading.

The Hate Game by Ben Dirs

Boxing’s greatest contests are, inevitably, those where the protagonists genuinely dislike each other.

Think Ali v Frazier, Tyson v anyone and, as we’re reminded once again, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank. No wonder Ben Dirs’ excellent account of their enduring rivalry is called The Hate Game.

When all of the pre-fight ‘flim-flam’ and talking was done, the two met in a Birmingham ring for the first time in 1990. Not surprisingly, it was brutal. More surprising is the account of how Benn was more than six pounds overweight on the morning of the fight. The boxer maintains that he stayed in his hotel room and watched a Marlon Brando movie, but Dirs suggests otherwise with an explanation which highlights the remarkable extent of his research.

This is a fine account of one of British boxing’s pivotal rivalries and though the pair may smile at each other nowadays, you sense they’re still the best of enemies.

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